IDF charges two soldiers in Gaza breaches
Besides rampant inaccuracies and the fact that it didn’t really examine the actions of Hamas, one of the main reasons that supporters of Israel have been so critical of the Goldstone Report is that Israel already has military and civilian courts that are responsible for monitoring any misbehavior in the IDF.
In fact, the IDF itself investigated 36 cases of possible misbehavior among its troops during last year’s Operation Cast Lead, the incursion into Hamas-controlled Gaza to stop rocketfire targeting Israeli civilians. Most have been investigated and dismissed, but, last week, IDF investigators moved forward in charging two soldiers with the horrific act of using a 9-year-old boy as a human shield.
The two soldiers, staff sargeants from the prestigious Givati brigade, had the boy open sacks they thought might be booby-trapped with explosives. (The bags, thankfully, turned out to be harmless.)
Haaretz reported that the soldiers, “who breached the army’s rule against using civilians as human shields during war, will be tried for violating their authority and for inappropriate conduct. An Israeli military official said the soldiers could face up to three years in jail.”
Two other Givati soldiers have already been charged with using a credit card they found during the siege.
Yediot Aharonot reports:
More than 30 probes have been launched against soldiers since the Gaza offensive ended in the beginning of 2009. Half of the cases have been closed by the military prosecution, while the other half are nearing their termination and await a decision on whether indictments will be filed.
A special team led by Lieutenant-Colonel Gil Maoz, who heads the military police’s southern district, is conducting investigations into claims regarding unlawful fire, injuring and endangering of innocent civilians, and disobeying orders.
Dozens of officers and soldiers have been summoned to give testimony or receive warning at the military police’s headquarters in recent months, some of them already having been discharged from the IDF.
A military official said the testimonies had revealed other infractions, some committed by commanders. “In places where the incident exceeds the boundaries of reason we will file indictments,” he said.
“But we can clearly…
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Tuesday, March 16th, 2010 at 1:27 PM | Stand For Israel
Israel Takes Investigation Seriously
Israel’s military prosecutor has charged two Israeli soldiers with “making use of civilians” during the Gaza conflict early last year, the New York Times reported last Thursday.
Although the military emphasized that the disciplinary actions were unrelated to the U.N.’s Goldstone Report, the fact that Israel is thoroughly scrutinizing the actions taken on their side of the conflict begs the question: What about the other side?
Last year, following the release of the Goldstone Report, the U.N. Human Rights Council called for both sides of the Gaza conflict–Palestinians and Israelis–to conduct internal investigations into possible human rights violations during the operation. Israel has done so — in fact, Israel has always had in place a legal system that investigates alleged abuses by the IDF.
Meanwhile, the Palestinians admitted they only began their investigation in late January of this year (barely meeting the three month deadline given by the U.N. last November), a small detail the AP mentioned low in their report on the U.N.’s recent decision to extend the investigation into the Gaza conflict for five more months.
Comments (0) »Monday, March 15th, 2010 at 9:03 AM | Alicia M. Cohn
IDF operation canceled due to… facebook status update!
One of the more routine–and dangerous–endeavors IDF battalions engage in is entering Palestinian villages to capture wanted terrorists. Soldiers do all they can to protect civilians–who are often used by the terror heads as human shields–while still nabbing the bad guys.
Imagine – soldiers in camouflage, sneaking stealthily through a village, bodies tense with readiness… when one whispers, “Wait! I gotta update my facebook status!”
Apparently, something not so far from this happened recently in the Binyamin region, which stretches north of Jerusalem and east toward the Dead Sea. After a soldier updated his facebook status that a force from his battalion was due to arrive in a Palestinian village, the commander aborted the mission, Yediot Aharonot reported:
The decision was made by Judea and Samaria Division Commander Brigadier-General Nitzan Alon, who feared that the leaked information may put the force in danger.The soldier’s commanders were informed of the incident as well and decided to put him on trial. Military officials noted that this was a serious incident which may have put the troops in danger had it not been revealed on time.
The operation was held several days later and deemed successful, while the soldier was judged and incarcerated.
The affair began when a soldier wrote in his Facebook status that the force was slated to arrive in the village and leave a day later. The Judea and Samaria Division’s information security officer learned about the leak and informed the division’s commander, who decided – in an unusual manner – to cancel the operation so as not to put the force at risk.
Maybe facebook needs to add another privacy protection option for when one is posting classified information.
Comments (0) »Wednesday, March 3rd, 2010 at 1:26 PM | Stand For Israel
Everything the U.S. ever wanted to know about UAVs (unmanned drones), it learned from Israel
Earlier this week, we told you about Israel’s newly developed drone, The Eitan, the world’s largest un-manned aerial vehicle (UAV). (These are the drones that keep “eliminating” Taliban leaders and helping U.S. forces in Iraq without imperiling U.S. troops.)
What we didn’t tell you is that a significant part of the U.S. technology has come from Israel, which has been at the forefront of UAV development for decades. The U.S. Air Force did try using unmanned drones for reconnaissance in Vietnam, but eventually shut down all its UAV funding until Israel changed world opinion about UAVs in the early 1980s.
During the First Lebanon War in 1982, the IDF used small UAVs to trick radar installations into becoming active in Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley, thus revealing their locations. Once spotted, regular Israeli fighter places moved in to destroy the radar sites.
According to this interesting article in Popular Mechanics, the Bekaa Valley campaign convinced the Americans that UAVs had major potential. (They’re spending $5.4 billion on UAVs in this year alone!)
The article continues with specifics about how the Eitan might play into an Israeli attack on Iranian nuclear installations:
The Eitan can carry a ton of payload and can reach Iran’s nuclear facilities, which the United Nations last week determined is hiding an active weapons program. But that does not mean these will be used as bombers. The IAF has been buying and upgrading airplanes specifically for long-distance strikes such as a potential attack against Iran. At least 50 F-15 Raam and F-16 Soufa aircraft have been converted by installing extra fuel tanks for greater range and countermeasures to defeat radar and missiles. So maybe the warplane/UAV tag team presented at the “operational acceptance ceremony” speaks to how manned and unmanned aircraft will work together on missions: The drone provides information while the manned airplanes drop the guided munitions.
Working from high altitudes, the Eitan will likely be used to provide prestrike information on targets, to eavesdrop on electronic communications and to send battle damage assessments back after an attack. It will also undoubtably be used to monitor any…
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Friday, February 26th, 2010 at 5:00 PM | Stand For Israel
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