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| Israel-Palestine-Jordan |
| Air force at ease with Gaza war role :Israeli Gen. |
| 2010-01-09 |
| [Iran Press TV Latest] A senior Israeli air force official takes pride in the army's conduct during the widely condemned Gaza war, describing the deadly operation as "a success." "Today, one year later, we certainly consider the operation a success...we can be proud of what we did," the head of the Israel air force manpower branch, Brig. Gen. Rami Ben-Efraim, told the Ynet news website just a few days after the anniversary of the December 2007-January 2008 offensive. "I was present at the operational decision-making forum, and I think we would have done the same thing. It is my feeling that in the air force today, people are at ease in the moral and ethical aspects over the way we acted," said Ben-Efraim, who was appointed head of the manpower branch in 2008. It is not the first time that Israel hails the behavior of its soldiers during Operation Cast Lead, in which more than 1,400 Palestinians, including women and children, were killed and thousands of others were rendered homeless. In December, Israel decorated eight soldiers for showing "heroism" in the Gaza war, another slap in the face of worldwide criticism against what the International Committee of the Red Cross described as Tel Aviv's use of "reckless" warfare against Palestinian civilians. In July, print and video testimony was released from 30 soldiers who said their commanders urged them to shoot first and worry later about distinguishing civilians from fighters. The documents described how civilians were used as human shields ahead of Israeli troops when they entered suspicious buildings, and charged Israel with using forbidden white phosphorus shells against Gazans. A report by former South African UN prosecutor Richard Goldstone documented Israeli soldiers' deliberate targeting of centers, such as schools and mosques, known to be holding civilians. The three-week Israeli land, sea and air offensive in the Gaza Strip also devastated a large part of the infrastructure of the impoverished coastal enclave. |
| Posted by:Fred |