Israel rejected proposed Hamas ceasefire in December

11Jan09

Investigative journalist and historian Gareth Porter reports that Israel rejected a truce offer from Hamas in mid-December:

“Contrary to Israel’s argument that it was forced to launch its air and ground offensive against Gaza in order to stop the firing of rockets into its territory, Hamas proposed in mid-December to return to the original Hamas-Israel ceasefire arrangement, according to a U.S.-based source who has been briefed on the proposal…

“The proposal to renew the ceasefire was presented by a high-level Hamas delegation to Egyptian Minister of Intelligence Omar Suleiman at a meeting in Cairo Dec. 14. The delegation, said to have included Moussa Abu Marzouk, the second-ranking official in the Hamas political bureau in Damascus, told Suleiman that Hamas was prepared to stop all rocket attacks against Israel if the Israelis would open up the Gaza border crossings and pledge not to launch attacks in Gaza…

The readiness of Hamas to return to the ceasefire conditionally in mid-December was confirmed by Dr. Robert Pastor, a professor at American University and senior adviser to the Carter Centre, who met with Khaled Meshal, chairman of the Hamas political bureau in Damascus on Dec. 14, along with former President Jimmy Carter. Pastor told IPS that Meshal indicated Hamas was willing to go back to the ceasefire that had been in effect up to early November “if there was a sign that Israel would lift the siege on Gaza”.

Pastor said he passed Meshal’s statement on to a “senior official” in the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) the day after the meeting with Meshal. According to Pastor, the Israeli official said he would get back to him, but did not.”

So, let’s get this straight: Israel breaks not one but two ceasefires and rejects clear offers from Hamas to agree to a third, and yet it still has the chutzpah to claim that it “had no option” other than to kill over 800 people in two weeks, including at least 32 children [.pdf] in the first 48 hours of the conflict alone. And some people are so blinkered that they continue to repeat this as if it were anything other than transparent lie.

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Various updates

(video via Joel)

- The Al Mezan Center for Human Rights (11 January) reports that the overwhelming majority of casualties thus far have been civilian non-combatants:

“Aircrafts, tanks, artillery batteries and naval vessels have been used in attacks on civilian targets, public infrastructure and border areas. According to Al Mezan’s careful monitoring, the IOF has killed at least 842 Palestinian[s] in the Gaza Strip since the start of its Operation Cast Lead on 27 December 2009. This number includes at least 175 children and 58 women. This number is restricted to those whom Al Mezan has verified and double-checked. The Center estimates that between 200 and 230 children have been killed. Many of those have still been under the rubble of houses under areas under IOF’s invasion. Moreover, tens of children who were killed on the first day of the attacks have not yet been verified; therefore, the Center prefers to wait until they are accounted for properly. Six of those who were killed by IOF were ambulance crewmen, who were killed while trying to reach victims of IOF’s attacks. The number also includes 3 journalists and dozens of elderly people. Al Mezan estimates that at least 85% of the casualties were civilian non-combatants.

Moreover, at least 2,960 people have been injured and/or maimed during the same period. This number includes at least 600 children and 385 women.

During the IOF’s military operations, it directly targeted 142 houses with guided missiles and shells. However, the number of houses that have been completely destroyed in these attacks is at least 470 houses. Another 3,000 to 4,000 houses have been partially destroyed. The IOF also destroyed 38 mosques; 13 of which were directly and wantonly targeted. 39 schools were damaged, of which 5 (and one university) were directly targeted. IOF attacks also destroyed 42 civilian facilities; including CBO offices and quasi-governmental institutions. Furthermore, it destroyed 107 privately owned workshops and small industrial and commercial plants. IOF also destroyed 90 police and security installations and 25 sites that were used for military purposes by armed groups…

UNRWA has reported today that well over 20,000 civilians have been admitted into its 32 shelters throughout the Gaza Strip. Nevertheless, Al Mezan believes that this number represents only 10% of the number of people who have been forcefully displaced from their homes.” [my emph.]

Al Haq [.pdf] similarly estimated on 7 January that civilians constitute “[m]ore than 80%” of the casualties, while numerous human rights organisations – Amnesty International, for example – have accused Israel of intentionally targeting civilians. The Palestine Red Crescent Society today condemned Israel’s “continuous targeting of civilians and civilian objects”, while Medecins Sans Frontieres has described “extreme violence indiscriminately affecting civilians.”

According to B’Tselem, as of today “at least 870 [Palestinians have been] killed, of them at least 230 children and 93 women”, with more than 3,600 people injured.

- Human Rights Watch accuses Israel of using white phosphorus in civilian areas of Gaza:

“Human Rights Watch said Sunday that Israel’s military has fired artillery shells with the incendiary agent white phosphorus into Gaza and a doctor there said the chemical was suspected in the case of 10 burn victims who had skin peeling off their faces and bodies.”

Here’s HRW’s statement, which accuses Israel of violating international law in its use of WP in Gaza.

- Israel continues to fire on ambulances and medical workers and prevent access, such that the Palestine Red Crescent Society has now stopped sending ambulances to certain areas for fear of getting killed and the ICRC has now stopped escorting Palestinian ambulances altogether.

- Israeli missiles completely destroyed a clinic in Gaza. The attack was deliberate:

“Minutes before the missile hit the building, which hosts the clinic, the Israeli Air Force fired a warning missile next to it, forcing all residents of the building and the adjacent buildings to flee the area. A short while after, the army directly hit the building and razed it completely.”

Swedish newspapers have reported the destruction of two Swedish-run clinics in Gaza in recent days. I’m still looking for a report in English. (h/t borkitekt)

- The UN OCHA reports [.pdf] that Israel’s offensive has resulted in “the largest number of forcibly displaced Palestinians since [1967]” – over 21,000 have fled to UNRWA shelters alone. It observes that “[c]ivilians, notably children, … are bearing the brunt of the violence”, continuing:

“The bombing campaign has already wrought extensive damage to public infrastructure and hundreds of civilian homes and businesses. Coming in the wake of a year and a half of severe blockade that has brought the Gaza economy to the brink of collapse, the ongoing operation is dealing another severe blow to an already impoverished population whose coping mechanisms are nearly exhausted.”

- Helena Cobban discusses “the seventh war of choice Israel has launched against its neighbours since 1973 [which in fact was itself largely a war of choice, in the sense that Israel could have easily avoided it]“:

“Of the seven wars one — in Lebanon, 1978 — had the goal of establishing an Israeli-controlled “security zone” running inside Lebanon’s border with Israel. The other six, including the present war on Gaza, all aimed at imposing a “forced regime change” on Arab communities neighbouring Israel through the violent physical dismantlement of politico-military structures then present in, or on occasion dominating, those societies.

The five earlier attempts at forced regime change all had interesting — and quite unintended — consequences that might have given Israel’s leaders serious pause before they launched the present war…”

- Amnesty International has called on the British government to suspend arms sales to Israel:

“Amnesty International today called on the UK government to suspend all military exports to Israel until there is no longer a substantial risk that such equipment will be used for serious violations of human rights.

The call came as Amnesty pointed to evidence that the specially-designed engines for a pilotless military aerial vehicle used by Israeli forces to target air strikes, may be of UK origin. Amnesty has found in recent conflicts that Israeli Air Force strikes have targeted civilian homes, hospitals and shops, and has documented significant civilian casualties from such strikes (1). The UN Relief and Works Agency in the Gaza Strip has reported the use of drones by Israeli forces in the current Gaza conflict (2).”

- A woman living in Sderot condemned the offensive in Gaza:

“Not in my name and not for me you went to war. The current bloodbath in Gaza is not in my name and not for my security. Destroyed homes, bombed schools, thousands of new refugees – are not in my name and not for my security. In Gaza there is no time for burial ceremonies now, the dead are put in refrigerators in twos, because there is no room. Here their bodies lay, policemen, children, and our nimble reporters play acrobatically with Hasbara strategies in view of “the images that speak for themselves”. Pray tell me, what is there to “explain”?

- A good piece from the Palestine Monitor on the potential pitfalls of the rhetoric of “humanitarian crisis”. While a horrendous crisis clearly exists, and the immediate imperative must be to ease it, it’s important not to lose track of the broader political context. On which point, see Mouin Rabbani’s excellent analysis over at MERIP.

- Numerous outlets (e.g. here) have put the size of yesterday’s demo at 100,000 (a significant underestimate, in my view). Hundreds of thousands of people protested over the weekend across Europe and the world. Today’s “pro”-Israel protest (h/t Asa) in London was completely pathetic by comparison, despite – if the BBC’s account is accurate – largely restricting itself to vague pieties about wanting “peace”.

-Dr. Reuven Pedatzur, a senior lecturer at the Strategic Studies Program, Tel Aviv University and Director of the Galili Center for Strategy and National Security, writes:

“It appears the senior command decided to shock the Palestinians by killing as many people connected to Hamas as possible. The assumption was, apparently, that killing several hundred people would make the Hamas leaders surrender or plead for a cease-fire. This is one of the reasons the air attack was carried out as a surprise. The IDF, which planned to attack buildings and sites populated by hundreds of people, did not warn them in advance to leave, but intended to kill a great many of them, and succeeded.” [my emph.]

- 76% of Israelis want the assault to continue even if Palestinians completely end the firing of rockets. (h/t lenin)

- 27 legal scholars and practitioners have argued that “Israel’s actions amount to aggression, not self-defence”, condemning the “unlawful blockade” and the illegal “collective punishment” of Gaza’s civilian population. They conclude that the “blockade of humanitarian relief, the destruction of civilian infrastructure, and preventing access to basic necessities such as food and fuel” amount to “prima facie war crimes”.

More updates can be found here and here (use ‘Ctrl+F’ to search by date, e.g. ‘11 January’).

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Tags: arms, Arms Trade, blockade, Cast Lead, ceasefire, collective punishment, demonstration, Gaza, Hamas, Human Rights, protest, siege, truce, war crimes, white phosphorus