[GushShalom] Gaza - the IDF's shooting range Gideon Levy

[Gush Shalom (Israeli Peace Bloc)]

GUSH SHALOM  pob 3322, Tel-Aviv  61033 âåù ùìåí, ú.ã.,3322 úì àáéá 

We have demonstrated against it on the same day; we placed an ad 
against it in the Friday Ha'aretz 

[Hebrew original at www.gush-shalom.org]

Sharon babbles
about evacuating
the Israeli settlements
In the Gaza Strip -
And in the meantime
He kills 15 Palestinians
in one single day. 

But to really understand what is going on in Gaza, read  Gideon Levy.

The IDF's shooting range   
 
By Gideon Levy 
Sun., February 15, 2004 
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/394153.html
 

Hebrew
http://www.haaretz.co.il/hasite/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=394230&sw=%F
2%E6%E4
 
It sometimes seems the Gaza Strip has become the central shooting range 
of the Israel Defense Forces, the IDF's firing zone and training field. The 
weapons in use there are of dubious legality, the rules of engagement lack 
the element of restraint, and punitive measures that Israel would not 
conceive of inflicting in the West Bank are par for the course, in a region 
that produces far less terrorism than the West Bank. 
 
The operation last Wednesday, in the Sajiyeh quarter of Gaza City, in 
which 15 Palestinians were killed - including at least seven civilians - was 
the latest illustration, for the time being, of what Israel allows itself to do in 
Gaza. Fifteen dead for the sake of liquidating one Hamas man who wasn't 
very senior in the organization is an intolerable price. In Gaza, though, it 
has become routine: Once every week or two, the IDF moves in, kills, 
demolishes and pulls out, and no one knows exactly what it was all in aid 
of. Why do wanted individuals have to be liquidated now in Gaza 
altogether? Is it only to bring about more revenge terrorism?

The fact that not one terrorist attack against Israel has originated from the 
Gaza Strip, because of the fence there, only heightens these questions. 
One begins to suspect that the IDF is behaving like this in Gaza simply 
because it can do whatever it fancies there.

The Gaza Strip and the West Bank have always been differentiated in the 
Israeli consciousness. Whereas Ramallah and Bethlehem are considered 
cities inhabited by people, Gaza has always been portrayed as a "nest of 
terrorists." The fact that nearly 1.5 million people live there, among them 
farmers and intellectuals, merchants and craftsmen, religious and secular 
people - just like anywhere else - has been deliberately distorted here. Try 
to tell an Israeli that the beaches of the Gaza Strip are among the most 
beautiful in the Middle East and that the majority of the Gazans are cordial, 
especially warm people. Who will believe that? The demonization to which 
Gaza has been subjected, going back to the period before the occupation, 
has made it possible to behave differently there. Just as in the Israeli-
occupied areas of Lebanon, which were remote and where almost 
everything was allowed, the occupation of Gaza, too, has always been 
marked by a sense of anarchy, dating back to the operations carried out 
there by Ariel Sharon and Meir Dagan (the current head of the Mossad) in 
the 1970s.

According to the Palestinian Human Rights Monitoring Group, there were 
five liquidations in the Gaza Strip in the past four months, as compared 
with only one in the West Bank. Why this ratio? Is it because the Gazans 
are more dangerous, or because more is allowed in Gaza?

The streets of Rafah resemble the set of a violent war movie. It's the 
Grozny of Gaza. To date, Israel has demolished hundreds of homes, 
including 40 in one day two weeks ago. The declared pretext - the arms-
smuggling tunnels from Sinai - can't justify destruction on this scale. The 
IDF would never dare carry out demolitions of this scope in the West 
Bank. Suffice it to recall how Jenin became a worldwide symbol two years 
ago, in Operation Defensive Shield. In Rafah the suffering is greater than 
in Jenin, but no one takes an interest. There are hardly any foreign 
correspondents there, and of course no Israeli journalists. It's not by 
chance that peace activists Rachel Corrie and Tom Hurndall and the 
cameraman James Miller were killed there.

It's there that Israel renews its arsenal, too. The miniature black steel darts 
that scattered in every direction in September 2002, in the vineyard of the 
Hagin family, killing a mother, two sons and their cousin who were picking 
grapes, were semi-flechette shells - an illegal antipersonnel weapon 
generally fired from tanks. At least twice the IDF used the destructive 
shell, whose scattered darts I saw stuck in the sides of buildings a great 
distance from the place where the family members were killed. The IDF has 
not dared to use flechette shells in the West Bank. Similarly, the bombing 
of population centers from the air has been authorized on a number of 
occasions in Gaza. The air force, even under the command of the 
unrestrained Major General Dan Halutz, would not have the temerity to 
drop a half-ton bomb on a crowded residential area in Ramallah. But it's 
okay in Gaza, as in the liquidation of Hamas activist Saleh Shehadeh in 
July 2002 with a one-ton bomb.

The rules of engagement are different in Gaza, too. In November 2001 the 
deputy military judge advocate general admitted that there is a "vast 
difference" in the guidelines for opening fire between Central Command 
(the West Bank) and Southern Command (the Gaza Strip). Why should 
this be so? In the area of the isolated Gaza Strip settlement of Netzarim and 
along the fence around the Gaza Strip, the order is to shoot anything that 
moves, with no prior warning. The latest victims were a group of children 
who approached the fence in the A-Salem neighborhood of Rafah on the 
weekend. A 10-year-old boy was killed and three of his friends were 
wounded because the soldiers saw them as "suspicious figures."

Testimony of the "anything goes" atmosphere was given by a senior IDF 
officer back in 1998, during a tour of the Gaza Strip by representatives of 
human rights organizations. Asked whether Gaza Strip terrorists were more 
dangerous, he replied, "No, but here we can do more."  


(photo)
Relatives of a Palestinian who died during a gunfight with Israeli forces 
praying in front of the family home, which was destroyed during an 
incursion into Gaza last week. Fifteen Palestinians were killed, an 
illustration of what Israel allows itself to do in Gaza.  
(AP) 


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