A group of soldiers who took part in Israel's assault in Gaza say widespread abuses were committed against civilians Many of the testimonies are in line with claims made by human rights organisations that Israeli military action in Gaza was indiscriminate and disproportionate. testimonies of the 14 conscripts and 12 reserve soldiers include: • Civilians were used as human shields, entering buildings ahead of soldiers • Large swathes of homes and buildings were demolished as a precaution or to secure clear lines of fire for the future. • Some of the troops had a generally aggressive, ill-disciplined attitude • There was incidents of vandalism of property of Palestinians • Soldiers fired at water tanks because they were bored, at a time of severe water shortages for Gazans • White phosphorus was used in civilian areas in a way some soldiers saw as gratuitous and reckless • Many of the soldiers said there had been very little direct engagement with Palestinian militants. The report says Israeli troops and the people who justify their actions are "slid[ing] together down the moral slippery slope" http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/8149464.stm
poor people, and the UN and the whole world was,still, will be watching Israeli killing these people and no one will ever VETO againest Israel....
for god sake what dose this have to do with THEIR war they don't have a heart! no feelings, nothing just a beast inside of them!
Well, I can't say I'm surprised. Hats off to the soldiers for speaking out...where are all the IDF flag-wavers now? Ohad, ChaosTrivia, browntwn... let's hear it. What have you to say now?
Yea true amana, If this happened the other way around im sure they would have been going nuts. This is why i love being a moderate. It allows me to take off my shades to try to see things from both sides.
I don't know anything about the group making the claims but I am skeptical of anonymous and hearsay reports of wrongdoing.
The source is given in 1st post BBC also has the Complete report in PDF http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/shared/bsp/hi/pdfs/14_07_09_breaking_the_silence.pdf
it's so sad to see a hot topic like this one getting 9 replies in a week.... but if it was a topic from an un-official source about a crazy guy who kills someone who happened to be Muslim... huuuu huuu ohh mama! the thread will be flaming with replies here and there everyone will put their two cents... this topic have a strong source and telling the truth and yet, we don't even see some pitty replies....
I know the source where the story is reported. It is the sources who allege wrongdoing that are anonymous and based on hearsay. It gets very old having to explain things over and over.
no aboodeh. it is not a "hot topic". the people just know that war is a dirty business, and even a moral army like the Israeli one has a few bad seeds who violate its rules. But more importantly, the people know that the Israelis marched into Gaza not because they strongly opposed the tendency of the palestinians to do meditation, yoga, grow cucumbers, and listen to the beatles. The readers know that the reason that the Israelis unwillingly marched into Gaza was to stop the firing of rockets on its southern villages, that has been going on for 7 years, traumtizing the children who live there, without stop and without proper retaliation, until the gaza operation. There is a price the palestinian people has to pay for the actions of the Hamas who hold their own people as hostages. The readers know that, and this is why they find the thread minor, serving a political agenda, uninteresting and unimportant. (sorry for poping this crap up again, I held myself for couple of days but couldn't hold myself anymore)
are trying to fool us with media gibberish ? the whole world knows the truth Now. are you trying to tell us that a bunch of people with poor arms trying to fight back and defend their land are terrorist while the organized war machine that kills kids on beach is not terrorizing people with nuclear and WMD's?!... oh yeah maybe they wanna bring democracy to ghaza like the big lies of Bush look at Iraq now, they brought democracy to Iraq or just terrorized whole population which was living in peace... the whole world know the truth my friend don't try to fabricate.... ~yoozy
can i see a comparisim between the mass destruction and kills in the Israeli side compared to the one's in Gaza? Pics and videos please and please don't just show me 10 police cars + 100 ambulance+ crying lady+crack in a house show me something like this but in Israel, or even close: http://img526.imageshack.us/img526/7840/1a762d5c90817d219f9c1b3.jpg http://img41.imageshack.us/img41/7717/israelimassacre16.jpg http://img41.imageshack.us/img41/6568/israelimassacre13.jpg http://img41.imageshack.us/img41/9729/israelimassacre24.jpg http://img36.imageshack.us/img36/7605/077324.jpg i swear i tried to pick up some less volence picture from google but couldn't... !
I didn't have a look on the pictures, as I have seen them all already. Pictures tell nothing. So Aboodeh good that you remember that the Israeli army was not in Gaza just for fun. I thought that you forgot. I am also happy that you agree that the Israeli operation was an act of retaliation and defence, and not an act of aggresion. Now for the ratios and comaparisons. In fact, Yes. I believe this is a fair ratio: a crack in one of our houses is worth many Palestinian lives. It is for us, the side who is under attack, to determine the price we charge for terrorizing our children with rockets, and not for you to determine. If rockets were falling on your house, then you have the right to determine the price the attacker has to pay. Besides, the muslims know that the worth of 1 israeli soldier is something like 200 arabs, because they set this ratio: This, more or less, was the ratio in all of the previous prisoner exchange deals example1, example2. In the forthcoming exchange deal with hamas there is a debate between israel and Hamas: Israel is willing to release 350 terrorists, Hamas insists on 450, including convicted murderers. For just 1 Israeli soldier. And after all, this ratio is still very low in comparison with other western countries. Who many lives did the U.S. charge back for the deaths of 2,000 americans in the WTC, over a million already? Who many lives did the Russians charge back for a blank air attack on their citizens living in Georgia? If you say that if you were living in one of this Israeli villages of were bombed daily and not ask for a hard retaliation after 7 years of suffering, you are bluffing yourself. We tried a retreat from gaza, and other stuff. But this is what you should remember: Before the Gaza operation there were 12 rockets fired every week in average. With NO retaliation. After the Gaza operation there were very little rockets fired (mostly in recent days, the Hamas is back. next time we hit back, you will be crying again). Hence, the Gaza operation hence is moral, and successful. The blood that you show in the pictures above is in the hands of the men who shoot the rockets. We just do what we have do to. We don't like to do it. What else can we do? Gaza is free. no settlements there. no israeli military there. That's the only thing we could do. As explained above, we did much less than what any other country would do if they were in our place, and too late. And you can continue to shoot and then later cry with new imad and the rest of the friends until the next millenium.
I'm not interested in the pics as I never am interested in any pics exploiting the dead. I will just assume they are similar to the scene of the many suicide bombers blowing up buses with civilians, am I right?
no they're not the same at all, these pictures were the result of high tech. weapons by Israel, not just a a tiny TNT. you'd better not see it anyway...it's so brutal
There is also a grave cultural difference between us and our neighbours when it comes to pictures. I remember that in this event, a major israeli newspaper published a picture of a bleeding girl on the main page which raised a huge scandal, and had to apologize. Jews + Blood = these two words don't coexist. Arabs + blood = natural combination. I read couple of arab newspapers (I speak arabic as well). There, the pictures of body parts are just a common and acceptable matter. There is also a shiite religious ceremony I once saw on TV, where they beat themselves until they bleed completely. In the arab culture, using the dead for political purposes is not a taboo like in our society, but a thing which is natural and welcome. Aboodeh does just that. A "small" cultural difference.
look we don't wanna get it too deep , those who have been killed whether Israeli or Palestinian, whether they died by debris or WMD's, at the end they're human beings and they're the same in God's eyes but here's lie the problem, Israel wanna convince the world that israelis got blood on their veins but Palestinians got water... and israel is the victim not the killer this is pretty funny ~yoozy
do you hear what you're saying? re-read it man you're compairng cracks with hundreds of life? so this gives you the green light to keep killing hundreds to match the 2 dead guys in your city? compairng to other disassters won't cover up the thousands killed in Gaza. this drama scene reminds me of one funny political story that goes like this: what happen if a bee fell into a cup of coffee ? answer: if the customer was Chinese he will toss the coffee and eat the bee if the customer was American he will thru the bee and drink the coffee if the customer was English guy he will leave the coffee shop without paying and never come back. if the customer was Israeli, he will start crying and camp in front of the coffee shop and bring all the available media to witness that all the coffee shop associations are planing againest Israeli people, and start a whole new scene reminding everyone about the suffering of the Israeli nation since god created earth. and evantually, he will take over the whole shop+billons of $$ and the whole world will stand by him and fight back any coffee shop charging any Israeli customer!!! so a trying to put me in the feeling of house crack will make me feel pitty and justify your brutal killing in Gaza? dose this equal to your crack: ? beleive me, they will always fire back until we free Palestine. ohh yeah, you should have nuked Gaza...that would end it up once and for all, ohh well, at least you used White phosphorus which will last for generations thank you very much!!!!!!!!!!!!!