Richard Falk (27 – 12 – 2008): Israeli airstrikes on Gaza violate humanitarian law
Richard Falk, relator especial da ONU para os Direitos Humanos nos Territorios Ocupados de Palestina, redactou este documento cando comezaba a actual campaña de ataques perpetrada polo exército de Israel contra Gaza (27 – XII – 2008). Como é lóxico, as condicións fóronse agravando ó pasa-los días e continua-los ataques e o bloqueo. O texto pode lerse traducido ó español na revista electrónica www.sinpermiso.info.
27 December 2008
The Israeli airstrikes on the Gaza Strip represent severe and massive violations of international humanitarian law as defined in the Geneva Conventions, both in regard to the obligations of an Occupying Power and in the requirements of the laws of war.
Those violations include:
Collective punishment – the entire 1.5 million people who live in the crowded Gaza Strip are being punished for the actions of a few militants.
Targeting civilians – the airstrikes were aimed at civilian areas in one of the most crowded stretches of land in the world, certainly the most densely populated area of the Middle East.
Disproportionate military response – the airstrikes have not only destroyed every police and security office of Gaza’s elected government, but have killed and injured hundreds of civilians; at least one strike reportedly hit groups of students attempting to find transportation home from the university.
Earlier Israeli actions, specifically the complete sealing off of entry and exit to and from the Gaza Strip, have led to severe shortages of medicine and fuel (as well as food), resulting in the inability of ambulances to respond to the injured, the inability of hospitals to adequately provide medicine or necessary equipment for the injured, and the inability of Gaza’s besieged doctors and other medical workers to sufficiently treat the victims.
Certainly the rocket attacks against civilian targets in Israel are unlawful. But that illegality does not give rise to any Israeli right, neither as the Occupying Power nor as a sovereign state, to violate international humanitarian law and commit war crimes or crimes against humanity in its response. I note that Israel’s escalating military assaults have not made Israeli civilians safer; to the contrary, the one Israeli killed today after the upsurge of Israeli violence is the first in over a year.
Israel has also ignored recent Hamas’ diplomatic initiatives to reestablish the truce or ceasefire since its expiration on 26 December.
The Israeli airstrikes today, and the catastrophic human toll that they caused, challenge those countries that have been and remain complicit, either directly or indirectly, in Israel’s violations of international law. That complicity includes those countries knowingly providing the military equipment including warplanes and missiles used in these illegal attacks, as well as those countries who have supported and participated in the siege of Gaza that itself has caused a humanitarian catastrophe.
I remind all member states of the United Nations that the UN continues to be bound to an independent obligation to protect any civilian population facing massive violations of international humanitarian law – regardless of what country may be responsible for those violations. I call on all Member States, as well as officials and every relevant organ of the United Nations system, to move on an emergency basis not only to condemn Israel’s serious violations, but to develop new approaches to providing real protection for the Palestinian people.
Masacre ó disparar Israel sobre escolas da ONU en Gaza
Israel demostra nesta campaña de ataques sobre Gaza que non lle importa a poboación civil palestina, como tampouco lle importou cando bloqueou a axuda humanitaria ou cando permitiu os asentamentos ilegais, ou cando ergueu o muro de Cisxordania.
A noticia de hoxe é o masacre producido ó disparar Israel sobre escolas da ONU en Gaza. Vén así nas edicións dixitais dos principais diarios de Madrid:
- “Matanza en una escuela de la ONU llena de refugiados en Gaza” (El País)
- “Al menos 43 muertos tras dos ataques de Israel a sendas escuelas de la ONU” (El Mundo)
Esta é a información ofrecida por BBC News na súa páxina web:
Strike on Gaza school ‘kills 30′
At least 30 people were killed and 55 injured when Israeli artillery shells landed outside a United Nations-run school in Gaza, UN officials have said.
A number of children were among those who died when the al-Fakhura school in the Jabaliya refugee camp was hit, doctors at nearby hospitals said. Israel said its soldiers had come under fire from militants inside the school. Earlier, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) warned of a “full-blown humanitarian crisis” in Gaza. Speaking on the 11th day of the Israeli assault, a senior ICRC official, Pierre Kraehenbuhl, said life in Gaza had become intolerable.
Palestinian medical sources say up to 600 people have been killed since the attacks began, and Mr Kraehenbuhl said much more needed to be done to protect civilians.
Some 70 Palestinians and five Israeli soldiers were killed on Tuesday.
One soldier was killed in an exchange of fire with militants in Gaza City, while four others were killed by shellfire from their own tanks earlier in the day, Israeli military officials said.
Israel says its offensive is stopping militants firing rockets, but at least five hit southern Israel on Tuesday, with one reaching the town of Gedera, about 40km (25 miles) from Gaza, and injuring a baby.
Three Israeli civilians and one soldier have been killed by rocket fire from the Gaza Strip since the offensive began 10 days ago.
‘Mortar fire’
The UN aid agency in Gaza, UNRWA, said three artillery shells had landed close to the al-Fakhura school on Tuesday afternoon, spraying shrapnel on people both inside and outside the building.
About 350 people had sought refuge at the school in effort to escape the fighting between Israeli soldiers and militants on the outskirts of the refugee camp, to the east of Gaza City.
Television footage showed bodies scattered on the ground amid pools of blood.
Palestinian doctors at nearby hospitals had earlier said that at least 40 people had been killed. The Kamal Adwan hospital in Beit Lahiya said 30 people had died there. A further 10 people died at the al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City, doctors said.
The UN officials said they regularly provided the Israeli military with exact co-ordinates of their facilities, and that the school was in a built-up area.
An Israeli military spokesman said that, according to initial checks, its soldiers had come under mortar fire from militants inside the school. “In response, the forces fired a number of mortar rounds into the area,” he told the Reuters news agency.
Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni said militants regularly hid among civilians inside such facilities or used them to launch attacks. “According to our values and the instructions that we have in the army, the targets are Hamas targets. We try to avoid any kind of civilian casualties,” she told reporters.
This was the second Israeli strike on a UN-run school in a day. Earlier, at least three Palestinians were killed when a school was hit in the Shati camp, UN officials said.
After the first attack, the director of operations for UNRWA, John Ging, said the conditions in Gaza were “horrific”.
“Nowhere is safe for civilians here in Gaza at the moment. They are fleeing their homes and they are right to do it when you look at the casualty numbers.”
“It’s very, very dangerous, and even the 14,000 who have sought refuge in our schools and shelters, they are not safe either.” Mr Ging said international leaders had a responsibility to act to protect civilians. “You cannot conduct huge military operations in such densely-populated places without killing hundreds and injuring thousands of civilians,” he added.
Meanwhile, Israeli forces have pushed further south on the Gaza Strip and clashed with militants near Gaza City. Skirmishes were also reported on the edges of the Deir al-Balah and Bureij refugee camps in central Gaza, and witnesses said Israeli tanks and infantry were advancing on Khan Younis. Information about what is happening inside Gaza is limited as Israel has barred foreign reporters from entering.
‘Time against us’
Diplomatic efforts to try to end the violence are gathering pace. French President Nicolas Sarkozy said he had asked his Syrian counterpart, Bashar Assad, to help convince Hamas to co-operate with efforts to end the Israeli offensive. Syria is regarded as a main backer of Hamas.
When later asked about the deaths at UN school in Gaza, Mr Sarkozy said: “It reinforces my determination for all this to stop as quickly as possible. Time is working against us. We must find a solution.”
US State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said the US would like to see “an immediate ceasefire” in Gaza. “An immediate ceasefire that is durable, sustainable and not time-limited,” he told reporters in Washington, according to the Reuters news agency. “We want, obviously, to be constructive,” he added.
US President-elect Barack Obama meanwhile broke his silence about the conflict, telling reporters that “the loss of civilian life in Gaza and Israel is a source of deep concern for me”.
However, he also reiterated that he would adhere to his principle that only President George W Bush would speak for US foreign policy at this time.
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is to hold talks in New York with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, who is going to the UN with several Arab foreign ministers to lobby for a ceasefire.
The BBC’s Laura Trevelyan in New York says the contours of an agreement are taking shape – international monitors along the Egypt-Gaza border to stop Hamas smuggling weapons and firing rockets at Israel, and the creation of a humanitarian corridor in southern Gaza to ensure that aid goes to the Palestinians.
The question now is whether Hamas will accept such a deal and if a call for a ceasefire will be heeded by Israel, our correspondent says.
Hamas has said that Israeli attacks on Gaza must stop and the crossings into the territory, which Israel controls, must be fully opened, before it agrees to a ceasefire.
Israeli Prime Miniser Ehud Olmert said on Tuesday that the military campaign in Gaza would continue until Israel had completely wiped out Hamas’s ability to fire rockets into Israel.
España: para obter un millor nivel de vida convén estudar
Copio (quem conta um conto, aumenta um ponto) unha anotación que facía a semana pasada o escritor e traductor Ramón Buenaventura no seu caderno de bitácora (Librillo de apuntes de Ramón Buenaventura). Os datos son do ano 2007 e veñen na Encuesta de Presupuestos Familiares publicada polo Instituto Nacional de Estadística español.
Relaciónase o nivel de acreditación académica (estudos) que posúe o “sustentador principal” (a persoa que máis aporta ó orzamento do fogar ou unidade familiar) co nivel de gasto por fogar e per capita, por esa orde:
- Sen estudos ou con estudos de 1º grao: 23 398 €, 9 343 €
- Educación secundaria, 1º ciclo: 31 091 €, 10 587 €
- Educación secundaria, 2º ciclo: 35 458 €, 12 195 €
- Estudos superiores non universitarios: 36 573 €, 12 840 €
- Estudos universitarios, 1º ciclo: 40 028 €, 14 984 €
- Estudos universitarios, 2º e 3º ciclo: 45 717 €, 16 827 €
Conclusión: en España, como regra xeral, para obter un millor nivel de vida convén estudar ou polo menos foilles conveniente ás xeracións actuais, aínda que todos coñezamos excepcións, como os “emprendedores” que chegaron a millonarios sen estuda-la secundaria ou os licenciados que traballan na caixa dun supermercado…
Corolario: como non se modifiquen as condicións materiais do ensino público e da sociedade no seu conxunto, as desigualdades tenderán a reproducirse, o cal tamén vén sendo unha regra xeral, ou faranse piores, coa globalización (que deslocaliza empresas e abre fronteiras ós inmigrantes), coa nosa (in)competencia lingüística e coa fenda dixital.
