Civilians in the line of fire

Blogging the Goldstone Report

This entry is part of an ongoing series, Blogging the Goldstone Report.

Today's installment of the Goldstone Report (p. 209-233) documents a series of attacks against unarmed civilians carried out from January 4-6, 2009. The legal question here is whether the IDF had any reason to believe the civilians were taking part in hostilities. If not, under international law, they are protected from attacks.

The first attack targeted Iyad al-Samouni's family -- he's related to the al-Samouni family from yesterday's section. His family was detained by Israeli soldiers for one day, January 4, and then began walking towards Gaza City. The U.N. mission isn't sure why they left. They might have been ordered to leave by Israeli soldiers, or they might have left in fear after Wa'el al-Samouni's house was shelled (see yesterday's section).

In any event, shortly after leaving their house, Iyad was shot by Israeli snipers. He was handcuffed at the time; when the Red Crescent was finally able to retrieve his body, three days later, he was still wearing the white plastic cuffs. (His family tried to help him immediately after he was shot, but the snipers fired warning shots to keep them away.)

Associated Files

Goldstone reportpdf, 6.5 MB

Muhammad al-Hajji and his family lived not far from the al-Samounis. He was killed by an explosion at his house around 1:30 a.m. on January 5. His wife decided to move the rest of the family into the house of Muhammad's brother-in-law, Nasser, who lived nearby.

As they were preparing to move to Nasser Hajji's house, Israeli soldiers broke into the house shooting. The soldiers asked Nasser Hajji whether he "was Hamas", which he denied assuring them that nobody in the area was a member of either Hamas or Fatah. Mrs. Hajji remembers the soldiers laughing and insisting that Nasser Hajji "was Hamas". The laughing added to her pain, as the soldiers had seen her dead husband and the children. Nasser Hajji was ordered to undress and then pull his brother's body to another room, where the soldiers threw mattresses and blankets on the body (the body was still lying in the same position when Abir Hajji returned to her home two weeks later). Her children asked her whether they would be killed as well. She told them to say the Shehada, the prayer recited in the face of death. (p. 212)

The family members were ordered to leave the house and walk to Rafah. They asked if they could travel to Gaza City, instead, since they had relatives there, but Israeli soldiers denied the request. Several of the family members were shot on the way; one suffered a miscarriage.

Then there's the case of Ibrahim Juha, whose house was struck by several missiles on the night of January 3-4. Soldiers broke into his house early on the morning of the 4th and opened fire, killing Ibrahim.

The survivors, again, were ordered to walk to Rafah. They traveled a short distance and then decided to shelter with another family instead of continuing.

The house was overcrowded, though -- 70 people crammed into one home -- and the Juha family left after several hours.

Mr. Juha had his mother in front of him propped up on a two-wheeled trolley as she was unable to walk. Mr. Sawafeary was near to him at the front of the group. Behind him, towards the middle of the group, was his 15-year-old son, Ibrahim, carrying a white flag. Mr. Juha believes he heard two shots. One of the shots hit his son in the chest. The group immediately sought cover once again in the Mughrabi house. They tried to care for Ibrahim in the workshop at the front of the house. His mother tried to sew the wound with a needle and thread and sterilize the materials with eau de cologne. Ibrahim died some six hours after he was shot. (p. 216)

The report goes on to document four similar cases. Majda and Rayya Hajaj were killed while fleeing their home in Juhr al-Dik after it was shelled by Israeli tanks. Four members of the Rabbo family were killed fleeing their own beseiged home; so was Rouhiyah al-Najjar. And the Abu Halima family's house was torched by white phosphorus shells, which killed and wounded 10 people, one of them just two years old.

The Goldstone Report concludes, in the face of these incidents, that Israeli soldiers were given "a low threshold" for using lethal force against civilians. The report identifies two policies that governed the IDF.

The first policy could be summarized, in the words of one of the soldiers: "if we see something suspect and shoot, better hit an innocent than hesitate to target an enemy."

[...] [The second] "One of the things in this procedure [the outpost procedure, which is being applied in areas held by the Israeli armed forces after the Gaza ground invasion] is setting red lines. It means that whoever crosses this limit is shot, no questions asked. [...] Shoot to kill." (p. 229)

The report is... I don't want to say "sympathetic" to the IDF soldiers involved in these killings. It acknowledges, though, that they were receiving "incessant" reports of suicide bombers from their higher-ups. They were worried about letting Palestinians get too close. Couple that with the lax rules of engagement described above, and you see why they killed so many innocent civilians.

That doesn't excuse the killings, of course. The report finds that -- at least in the cases it reviewed -- the IDF soldiers had no reason to believe the civilians they targeted were actually taking part in hostilities. It concludes that their murders were "grave violations" of the Fourth Geneva Convention.