Israel disputes soldiers' accounts of Gaza abuses

[ej510]

Source: International Herald Tribune


By Ethan Bronner
Published: March 27, 2009

JERUSALEM: Israel is pushing back against accusations of civilian abuse in its Gaza war, asserting that the overwhelming majority of its soldiers acted honorably and that the account of a killing of a woman and her two children appears to be an urban myth spread by troops who did not witness it.

Officers are stepping forward, some at the urging of the top command, others on their own, offering numerous accounts of having held their fire out of concern for civilians, helping Palestinians in need and punishing improper soldier behavior.

"I'm not saying that nothing bad happened," Bentzi Gruber, a colonel in the reserves and deputy commander of the armored division, said in an interview. "I heard about cases where people shot where they shouldn't have shot and destroyed houses where they shouldn't have destroyed houses. But the proportion and effort and directions we gave to our soldiers were entirely in the opposite direction."

The accusations caused a furor here and abroad because they came on top of others that the civilian death toll was high and that soldiers took an unusually aggressive approach in Gaza.

The accounts that have received the most attention came from a taped conversation of Gaza veterans at a pre-military course where soldiers told of a sniper killing a woman and her two children walking in a no-go zone and another of an elderly woman shot dead for approaching a commandeered house.

Cont'd at the link

Read more: http://www.iht.com/articles/2009/03/27/africa/28israel.php

[Scurrilous]

1. Interviews back IDF misconduct in Gaza

Resident's account of a sniper firing on civilians, along with soldiers' graffiti and destruction seen by Associated Press in homes they commandeered, lend support to allegations of Israeli army misconduct during Gaza offensive

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3693180,00.html

<snip>

"When Israeli soldiers expelled Abir Hijeh, her five children and their neighbors from homes in a Gaza war zone, she said they warned her in broken Arabic: Go south or you might get shot.

The group went the wrong way and came under fire from Israeli soldiers. Hijeh was wounded and her two-year-old daughter was killed.

Hijeh's account of a sniper firing on civilians, along with soldiers' graffiti and destruction seen by The Associated Press in homes they commandeered, lend support to allegations of Israeli army misconduct during the onslaught in Gaza.

In recent testimony, Israeli soldiers told of vandalizing homes they seized to use as army posts, as well as relaxed rules of engagement, including hasty shooting at civilians. The soldiers, who spoke to a military prep school in a closed-door session, described an incident with similarities to the shooting of the Hijeh family."

[Chulanowa]

2. Ah yes, the "bad apples" excuse

It has nothing, NOTHING, I say, to do with the recruitment, training, or command. Nope! No way , no how. it can't have anything to do with the IDF's and the Israeli politician's stance that the Palestinians are subhuman vermin who are nevertheless a lethal threat to Israel...

nope! Just a few random bad apples! Has nothing to do with the way they were crammed into an unwashed, bug-infested barrel at all!