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Israel-Palestine-Jordan
'No probe for blatant Hamas war crimes'
2009-02-05
Human rights groups argued Wednesday that a detailed probe into Hamas's firing of Kassam rockets at Israeli communities is not necessary, because it constitutes such a "blatant" war crime. By contrast, Israel's actions are more complex, and therefore do require such investigation, they said.
Oh, so the International Criminal Court will prosecute Hamas without further delay, will they ...
War crimes, said Sarit Micha'eli of B'tselem, are those actions that violate Article III of the Geneva Convention, and it was clear that Hamas was in violation of the requirement of distinction between civilian and military targets.

"It makes it quite easy regarding Hamas. It is quite clear that they are attacking and targeting civilians. When someone straps a bomb on themselves or fire missiles at civilians, the details are less important. It is clearly a war crime without even looking at the details," she said. "Even if they fired a Kassam missile as a military target, the fact that it is an inaccurate weapon, it would still count as an indiscriminate attack."

"With Israel things are more complicated because Israel states it does not deliberately target civilians and that it safeguards them. With Israel, you have to investigate each specific incident because even if a civilian is killed in an attack, it doesn't mean its necessarily a war crime. Targeting civilians is a war crime, but the damage to civilians in a given situation isn't indicative of a war crime."

"The Israeli authorities deny everything, so one has to prove what happened in a way that you don't need to do with the Palestinian rockets," said Donatella Rovera of Amnesty International.

Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum was quoted by AP Wednesday as saying Hamas attacks on southern Israel towns are "a means of self-defense."

"Those are not civilians. They are all soldiers," Barhoum said of the residents of southern Israel. "We are firing at places that bring us the F-16s, the warplanes and the tanks."

But Micha'eli dismissed Barhoum's statements as absurd. "No credible human rights law expert would accept that excuse," she added.
Posted by:tipper

#2  "credible human rights law expert "


oxy-moron.
Posted by: Menhadden Chaitle8001   2009-02-05 15:15  

#1  "No credible human rights law expert would accept that excuse,

Care to make book on that, honey?
Posted by: tu3031   2009-02-05 14:38  

00:00