JERUSALEM,
Sept 2 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - Facing mounting criticism at
the number of Palestinian civilians, including children, killed by
Israeli troops, Israeli Defense Minister Binyamin Ben Eliezer Monday,
September 2, 2002, ordered an inquiry.
The
move came as the Palestinian leadership accused Israel of "state
terrorism" and called on the international community, and in
particular Washington, to break its silence on Israel's tactics.
There
has also been rising Israeli press criticism of the army leadership
expressing fears that the military's tarnished image could weaken
Israel's 23-month crackdown on the Palestinian Intifada.
After
dozens of Palestinian civilians were killed recently during Israeli
military operations, Ben Eliezer ordered Chief of Staff General Moshe
Yaalon to produce a report by Friday, September 6, on the causes of
death and means of avoiding them in the future, a Defense Ministry
statement said.
On
Sunday, four Palestinians were killed in an army ambush close to
a Jewish settlement near the southern
West Bank
town of
Hebron
. Witnesses said the victims were workers walking home from their jobs
in a quarry, while the army claimed they were preparing an attack.
On
Saturday night, two children and two teenagers were killed by mistake
during an operation targeting a Palestinian resistance activist
in the
West Bank
.
A
woman, her two sons and one of her nephews were killed last week in
the shelling of a house in a
Gaza
City
neighborhood.
Also,
on July 22, an Israeli F-16 dropped a one-ton bomb on a
heavily-populated neighborhood, in an operation to kill the Hamas
military leader Salah Shehadeh.
Apart
from the leader of the group's armed wing and his bodyguard, 16 other
people, including nine children, were killed in the raid, drawing a
barrage of international condemnations.
However,
Israeli military officials voiced their "discontent" after Ben
Eliezer's office announced the creation of the commission, arguing that
its recommendations could restrict the army's operations on the ground,
according to Israeli army radio.
The
radio said some officers warned that any changes in the shooting and
arrests procedures could "hamper their mission of preventing
terrorist attacks," which dropped off dramatically in the past
month.
Israeli
forces, occupying the Palestinian land and imposing crippling curfews on
a whole population, call any Palestinian legal resistance to the
occupation “terrorism”.
 |
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Israeli forces killed him in cold-blood
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Israeli
Public radio said the probe came against the backdrop of an acute crisis
between the Defense Ministry and the army, the former accusing the
latter of not providing details on the circumstances of civilian deaths
soon enough to protect Israel's image abroad.
Playing
down the army's recent string of blunders, former Prime Minister
Binyamin Netanyahu claimed, "The army isn't trigger happy. The
Palestinian terrorists imposing war on us and hiding behind civilians
are."
Meretz
Avshalom, an MP from the left-wing Meretz party, denounced the former
Premier's comments and stressed that in recent operations "military
officials did not give enough consideration to the presence of civilians
near the targets."
"Life
in Israel and the Palestinian territories is very cheap. But certain
levels of the political echelon now understand that the tendency to
overlook the deaths of innocent Palestinians just because the
Palestinians themselves are killing civilians is not justified,"
said Ha’aretz.
Despite
a one-month lull in bombing attacks, the Israeli army continued its
operations unabated, drawing a barrage of criticism for a string of
blunders, which culminated with the killing of at least nine Palestinian
civilians in the past week.
"The
Israeli authorities are gradually becoming aware of discipline and
coordination problems within the various levels of the military
hierarchy," said a western expert, on condition of anonymity, AFP
reported.
"Considering
the nature of military psychology, the simple fact that this probe was
announced is a positive sign," he said, adding nevertheless that
the investigation would have earned itself more credibility had it been
headed by a non-military figure.
Out
of the 49 Palestinians killed by the Israeli army in August, 30 were
civilians, according to Palestinian medical and human rights
organizations quoted by the Israeli daily Ha’aretz.
Struggling
to contain Palestinian resistance, Israel stepped up several
controversial methods, such as demolishing the houses of activists'
relatives, threatening to deport them to the Gaza Strip and using
civilians as human shields, although the Israeli Supreme Court banned
the latter practice.
International
human rights and legal groups have repeatedly slammed the Israeli
practices as ‘war crimes’, and as ‘violating international law, as
well as Geneva Conventions’.
