AI demands UN investigation in Israel-Gaza conflict war crimes

LONDON: Amnesty International (AI) has urged the UN to urgently mandate an independent international investigation into Israeli airstrikes on Gaza as well as Palestine’s indiscriminate shelling of Israel, and hold accountable those responsible for war crimes.

The UN questions the legality of Israel’s Gaza offensive, while Netanyahu is dismissive of international pressure.

Despite claims by Israel that its operation “Protective Edge”, launched June 8, targets Hamas militants, most of more than a hundred Palestinians killed in airstrikes on Gaza are civilians, Amnesty says, adding that at least 24 children and 16 women were among the casualties.

Simultaneously, at least 20 people in Israel have been wounded by rocket attacks from Palestinian territories, according to the human rights watchdog, calling on the UN to set up a “fact-finding mission to Gaza and Israel to investigate violations of international humanitarian law by all parties to the conflict.”

“Swift UN action is needed as lives hang in the balance,” said Philip Luther, Director of the Middle East and North Africa Program at Amnesty International. “The international community must not repeat previous mistakes, standing by and watching the devastating consequences for civilians of both sides.”

Amnesty sees arms embargo on Israel and all Palestinian military groups as a means of preventing the violence escalating further.

“Pending such an embargo, all states must immediately suspend all transfers of military equipment, assistance and munitions to the parties, which have failed to properly investigate violations committed in previous conflicts, or bring those responsible to justice,” Amnesty's official statement reads.

Strikes on homes, performed as part of Israel’s military operation, are a matter of particular concern to human rights groups. The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Navi Pillay, on Friday questioned the legality of such attacks.

Israel has argued that all targets in the Gaza strip are either military facilities or are homes of Hamas militants.

In case of doubt, buildings ordinarily used for civilian purposes, such as homes, are presumed not to be legitimate military targets,” Libi Vice, spokeswoman for the Israel Defense Forces (IFD) told RT on Thursday.

Human rights watchdogs want proof that 340 housing units, destroyed in Gaza, were actually used for military purposes.

“Unless the Israeli authorities can provide specific information to show how a home is being used to make an effective contribution to military actions, deliberately attacking civilian homes constitutes a war crime and also amounts to collective punishment against the families,” said Amnesty's Luther.

“Firing indiscriminate rockets, which cannot be aimed accurately at military targets, is a war crime, as is deliberately targeting civilians,” he added. “There can be no excuse for either side failing to protect civilians, including journalists, medics and humanitarian workers, or civilian facilities.”

Amnesty International has also called on Israel and Egypt to “ensure that sufficient amounts of medical and humanitarian supplies are allowed into Gaza”. Healthcare services in the region have been on the brink of collapse due to shortages of supplies, the World Health Organization earlier warned.

Friday saw thousands of activists in London and Oslo protesting against Israeli strikes in Gaza. Organizers of the massive rallies said Palestinians are facing “a horrific escalation of racism and violence” at the hands of the IDF.

What AI revealed was earlier censored by Jang Group

ISLAMABAD: The Jang Group was not publishing my stories for the last many days giving full details with evidence that Pakistan Army officials working for the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) were directly, and in some cases indirectly, contacting cable operators and pressurising them to put the Geo News and other Geo channels off air without waiting for the decision of the constitutional governmentNow my exclusive stories are wasted, as an independent and credible international body, Amnesty International has come up with its report disclosing most of these facts.
I always wondered as to why Geo and Jang Group was not carrying my stories about ISI’s role in challenging the writ of the government and in shutting down Geo TV despite the fact that Geo channels were being blacked out across the country and Group was being badly pressed — one of the worst attacks on freedom of expression and independence of media following General Musharraf’s November 2007 Geo-specific censorship during which Geo News remained off air for 72 days.

This has been a basic principle across the world that intelligence agencies work under cover. But, during course of our investigative journalism, we easily tracked down the ISI networks, which, instead of working to ensure national security, were busy taming street cable operators to disturb Geo channels, and later close them. They were even found involved in incidents of kidnapping and torture, and evidence of such acts are present. Severe threats were being hurled at cable operators and others concerned to ensure that Geo remains blocked. All these facts were being reported but Jang Group’s top editorial management remained hell bent not to publish factual stories being filed with evidence and versions.

While Amnesty report came on scene on May 30, the investigative reporting to this fact that media is being badly censored and pressurised in Pakistan by the powerful institution of ISI were being filed since April 30. However, the Group continued to censor the stories in the name of national interest, while the Constitution, liberty of citizens, basic human rights, right of access to information, right to freedom of expression and independence of media were being compromised.

Not only involvement of the ISI officials in the instances of controlling cable operators, in some cases regular army officers, came on scene but also army vehicles were used to pressure the officials of the Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority (Pemra), the regulatory body of electronic media.

It didn’t stop here. Two of Pemra private members, who are active against Geo, were in constant contact with intelligence agency officers. PPP leaders say that lawyer of ISI Babar Awan got Israr Abbasi inducted as member Pemra during the PPP government and now he remains in touch with the intelligence agency. He himself admitted that his initial so-called 13-pages fact finding report was prepared by officials of the intelligence agency.

Any highest level probe can check call records of these members, cable operators and officials to verify some of the facts. However, most the stories filed were stopped or edited in a way that name of the ISI was deleted or edited and people remain deprived of the facts.

Even the federal government was repeatedly asked to take action against officials of the intelligence agency and stop them from interacting with the cable operators or Pemra officials directly, as, in this way, writ of the government was being challenged. However, a weak prime minister and a weak government remained unmoved and silent and never initiated any action against the ISI officers or Pemra officers involved, and thus compromised its own writ. In latest events government officials are being attacked and tortured. A senior federal minister himself told this correspondent that a senior government official was kidnapped and later badly tortured. However, so far no action has been taken and despite having a democratically elected heavy mandated government, Pakistani citizens and media is being harassed by a state institution, and there is no one to help.