Monday, Dec 15th
Last update10:21:52 AM GMT
War Glance
Israeli soldiers used an 11-year-old Palestinian boy as a human shield during the war against Hamas in the Gaza Strip, UN human rights experts said Monday.
The IDF ordered the boy to walk in front of soldiers being fired on in the Gaza neighborhood of Tel al-Hawa and enter buildings before them, said the UN secretary-general's envoy for protecting children in armed conflict.
Rabbis affiliated with the Israeli army urged troops heading into Gaza to reclaim what they said was God-given land and "get rid of the gentiles" — effectively turning the 22-day Israeli intervention into a religious war, according to the testimony of a soldier who fought in Gaza.
Literature passed out to soldiers by the army's rabbinate "had a clear message — we are the people of Israel, we came by a miracle to the land of Israel, God returned us to the land, now we need to struggle to get rid of the gentiles that are interfering with our conquest of the land," the soldier told a forum of Gaza veterans in mid-February, just weeks after the conflict ended.
Now testimony is emerging from within the ranks of soldiers and officers alleging a permissive attitude toward the killing of civilians and reckless destruction of property that is sure to inflame the domestic and international debate about the army's conduct in Gaza.
Six years after the U.S. invaded Iraq, 36 percent of Baghdad's drinking water is unsafe, according to the Iraqi Environment Ministry - in a good month. In a bad month, it's 90 percent. Cholera broke out last summer, and officials fear another outbreak this year.
The U.S. bombing campaign that forced Iraq to withdraw from Kuwait damaged the water system and cut the resources needed to fix it.
A decade of international economic sanctions impoverished Iraq, and the water got worse. The U.S.-led invasion six years ago led to wide looting of offices and the abandonment of purification systems.
During Operation Cast Lead, Israeli forces killed Palestinian civilians under permissive rules of engagement and intentionally destroyed their property, say soldiers who fought in the offensive.
The soldiers are graduates of the Yitzhak Rabin pre-military preparatory course at Oranim Academic College in Tivon. Some of their statements made on Feb. 13 will appear Thursday and Friday in Haaretz.
A 12-year-old girl died Monday after she was struck by a warning shot fired as a vehicle accelerated toward an Iraqi police station, said the U.S.-led military coalition.
The girl, who was standing about 100 meters (about 328 feet) behind the vehicle, was hit by one of the rounds, the release said. Troops attempted to treat her at the scene, but she died while being transported to a hospital.
TVNL Comment: So is it standard practice to fire warning shots at street level in an occupied city...as opposed to firing shots into the air? Is this our the U.S. military conducts their occupation?
Intelligence experts explicitly warned Tony Blair's aides that Britain was not in "imminent danger of attack" from Saddam Hussein, a confidential memo revealed today.
The row over claims that the Government "spun" its way into war with Iraq is likely to be reignited after the release of the document by the Cabinet Office.
The memo, released after a long-running Freedom of Information battle, shows Mr Blair's officials knew seven years ago that the threat from Saddam was not immediate.
Despite the warning, the Government's dossier on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction included a claim that Baghdad was ready to launch an attack within "45 minutes".
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