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Suicide Bombers Commit Crimes Against Humanity: HRW
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The HRW report ignores that the Israeli army has killed almost 2,000 Palestinian civilians since September 2000
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GAZA
, November 1 (IslamOnline
& News Agencies) – The people responsible for planning and
carrying out suicide bombings that deliberately target civilians are
guilty of crimes against humanity and should be brought to justice,
Human Rights Watch said in a new report released on its website
Friday, November 1.
The
170-page report is the first full-fledged examination of individual
responsibility for suicide bombings against civilians in
Israel
and the occupied
Palestinian territories.
The
report, Erased in a Moment: Suicide Bombing Attacks against Israeli
Civilians, also provides
the most thorough study to date of the suicide bombing operations of
Palestinian resistance movements Hamas, Islamic Jihad, the Al-Aqsa
Martyrs' Brigades and the Popular Front for the Liberation of
Palestine (PFLP), the groups that have claimed responsibility for
almost all recent retaliatory attacks.
The
people who carry out those attacks are "war criminals, and so are
the people who help to plan such attacks," said Kenneth Roth,
executive director of Human Rights Watch. "The scale and
systematic nature of these attacks sets them apart from other abuses
committed in times of conflict. They clearly fall under the category
of crimes against humanity."
Since
January 2001, 52 Palestinian suicide bombings have killed some 250
civilians, says HRW.
On
the other hand, since September 2000, the Israeli occupation
army has killed 1,949 Palestinians, mostly teenagers and children,
according to an Agence France-Presse (AFP) death toll.
Human
Rights Watch said well-established principles of international law
require that those in authority be held accountable when people under
their control commit war crimes or crimes against humanity. Leaders
who order such crimes, fail to take reasonable preventive action, or
fail to punish the perpetrators are also responsible for such crimes.
The
report criticized the top leaders of Palestinian resistance movements
Hamas and Islamic Jihad who, it says, have openly espoused,
encouraged, or endorsed suicide bombing attacks against Israeli
civilians, and indicated that they have the capacity to stop them from
happening.
The
report also cited the Palestinian Front for the Liberation of
Palestine (PFLP), saying it has publicly claimed responsibility for
attacks in
Israel
.
The
Human Rights Watch report further assesses the role and responsibility
of the Palestinian Authority (PA) and Palestinian President Yasser
Arafat regarding suicide bombings.
Human
Rights Watch conducted in-depth interviews with PA officials and
members of the resistance armed groups, and closely reviewed PA
internal documents made public by
Israel
.
On
the basis of what was publicly available to date, Human Rights Watch
did not find evidence that Arafat or the PA planned, ordered or
carried out suicide bombings or other attacks on Israeli civilians, or
that they were able to exercise effective control over the actions of
the perpetrator groups, including the Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades, an
off-shoot of Arafat's Fatah movement.
But
Roth said the PA's failure to take effective preventive action or to
punish suicide bombers outside of its control does not meet the
criteria of command responsibility under the current state of
international law. "But Arafat and the PA do bear a high degree
of political responsibility," he said.
Israeli
aggressions on the PA, such as the destruction of PA police and
security installations, have greatly undermined its capacity to act,
the PA says.
Palestinian
resistance groups and their supporters have pointed to repeated – in
fact daily – Israeli attacks that have killed and injured almost
2,000 Palestinian civilians since the start of the second Intifada
against Israeli occupation in September 2001. They described martyr
– what is termed "suicide bombings" – as counter or
retaliatory attacks.
But
the HRW report ignored this, concluding that these arguments in no way
justify reprisals that target civilians.
"Even
in the face of Israeli violations of international law, Palestinian
armed groups must refrain from deliberate attacks against
civilians," Roth said.
Israel
's continuing military
occupation, and its vastly superior means of combat, make such attacks
their only option, said Palestinian resistance groups. But HRW again
shelved these arguments, claiming they find no justification in
international law.
Finally,
Palestinian resistance groups asserted their targets are not really
civilians because "all Israelis are reservists" and because
Israeli imposed residents of sprawling
illegal settlements have forfeited their civilian status. But the
report says that while civilian Israeli settlements in the
West Bank
and
Gaza
are illegal under
international humanitarian law, persons residing there are entitled to
protection as civilians except when they are directly participating in
hostilities.
The
Israeli government of far-right Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has built
dozens of colonial Israeli settlements in the occupied
West Bank
and Gaza Strip – the land of the expected future Palestinian state.
Israeli
officials have admitted there are 60 illegally established settlements
in the
West Bank
and
Gaza
– so-called rogue outposts that
Sharon
has refused to dismantle.
The
Israeli government has further established isolated zones around
colonial areas in the
West Bank
in an attempt to transfer the Palestinians to a number of
Bantustans
surrounded by settlements to enforce a situation that would hinder the
Palestinians from their right to establish an independent state on the
lands that were occupied by
Israel
in 1967. This includes
Jerusalem
, which
Israel
is trying to isolate from the rest of the
West Bank
.
In
June, renowned Israeli writer Abraham B. Yehoshua said that the
policies of the Jews is the reason behind suicide bombings and said
that peace and real security could only be reached if Israel withdraws
from Palestinian land, dismantles illegal Jewish settlements and stops
building new ones.
"The
actions of the Jews are the real reason behind the Israeli misery from
the age of the Nazis until the Palestinian resistance fighters," he said.
He
attacked the new Israeli plan to build the separation wall, saying "it
will only increase the animosity of the Palestinians towards the
Israelis."
About
Palestinian resistance operations, he said, "When a Palestinian sets out to carry out an operation like
this, he tells himself: ‘If my blood is destined to mix with the
blood of hundreds of my people in a camp that is no larger than 500
meter squares, then let it better mix with the blood of my enemies.’"
Yehoshua’s
comments triggered strong reactions in
Israel
.
The Israeli radio show ‘Good Morning Israel’ hosted Yehoshua and
tried to dissuade him to go back on his comments, but he said: "I’m
not the reason behind the catastrophe between the Jews and the Muslim
Palestinians, nor the one between the Jews and the German Christians.
What I would like to emphasize is that we need to go out of the
Palestinian lands and dismantle the settlements so that we can stop
terrorism."
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