Gazans Denied Justice as Rights Take a Beating
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Inter Press Service (IPS)
by Mel Frykberg - February 5, 2010 - 1:00am

Gazans hoping for a modicum of justice following Israel’s indiscriminate military assault on the coastal territory during December 2008 and January 2009 - which left 1,400 Palestinians, mostly civilians, dead - could be waiting in vain. The Israeli government has taken the offensive in the propaganda battle and attacked United Nations-appointed Justice Richard Goldstone’s report into war crimes committed during the war. The report alleges that Israel was responsible for the lion’s share of human rights abuses.

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Oron: We'll probe right-wing funding
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Jerusalem Post
by Hilary Leila Krieger - February 5, 2010 - 1:00am

The controversy surrounding a report released this week by the Zionist student group Im Tirtzu, which blames the New Israel Fund for much of the Goldstone Report on last winter’s Operation Cast Lead, continued to build on Thursday, as additional Knesset members weighed in on the now-embattled NGO.

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U.S.: Easing Gaza siege would help counter Goldstone
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz
by Barak Ravid - February 4, 2010 - 1:00am

The United States has suggested to Israel that easing the Gaza blockade would help counter the fallout from the Goldstone report on alleged war crimes during Operation Cast Lead a year ago. Friday, United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon is expected to present a report to the General Assembly on the implementation of the report's recommendations by Israel and the Palestinian Authority.

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War stories our daughters won't tell us
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Jerusalem Post
by Larry Derfner - (Interview) February 4, 2010 - 1:00am

The most shocking testimony in the new Breaking the Silence report, I think, is number 95. A female Border Police sergeant describes how the guys would catch Palestinian kids trying to sneak into Israel to sell cheap little toys: It was simply routine – emptying the children’s plastic bags and playing with their toys. You know, grabbing the stuff and throwing the toys among us like balls. Q: The children cried? Constantly. They cried and were terrified. I mean, you couldn’t miss it. Q: Adults cried too?

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Israel should face international justice
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Gulf News
by George S. Hishmeh - (Opinion) February 4, 2010 - 1:00am

Much as the world has responded generously to assist Haitians after their devastating earthquake last month, the opposite has been true about the impoverished Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, who have been under an increasingly debilitating siege since the Israeli blitz a little over a year ago.

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Gaza atrocities
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Arab News
(Editorial) February 4, 2010 - 1:00am

Shells containing phosphorus, which when exposed to air burns through anything with which it comes into contact, are OK in international law provided that they are not fired at civilians. During its bombardment of the Gaza ghetto, Israel repeatedly denied that it had used shells containing this horrific chemical. In the wake of the incontrovertible UN findings that phosphorus shells were deployed against Gaza’s heavily built up areas, the Israelis changed their tune.

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Hamas gives U.N. response to Gaza war crimes report
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Reuters
by Nidal Al-Mughrabi - February 3, 2010 - 1:00am

The Islamist group Hamas on Wednesday formally rejected allegations it had committed war crimes during last year's fighting in Gaza, charges made in a United Nations report. Hamas officials said the group set out in a 52-page response handed to a U.N. official in Gaza that the killing of three Israeli civilians in rocket attacks during Israel's Dec. 27, 2008-Jan. 18, 2009 offensive was an accident and military installations had been targeted.

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IDF risked civilians to save soldiers
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Jerusalem Post
February 3, 2010 - 1:00am

The IDF risked the lives of Palestinian civilians in order to minimize the risk posed to its soldiers during Operation Cast Lead, the Independent quoted "a high-ranking" IDF officer as saying in a report published Wednesday. The officer, who reportedly served as a commander during the war in Gaza, acknowledged that following the heavy casualties in the Second Lebanon War, the IDF went beyond its previous rules of engagement on the protection of civilian lives in order to minimize military casualties.

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Israeli commander: 'We rewrote the rules of war for Gaza'
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Independent
by Donald MacIntyre - February 3, 2010 - 1:00am

A high-ranking officer has acknowledged for the first time that the Israeli army went beyond its previous rules of engagement on the protection of civilian lives in order to minimise military casualties during last year's Gaza war, The Independent can reveal.

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Michael Sfard: Laws of conflict do not allow for killing civilians in this way
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Independent
by Michael Sfard - (Opinion) February 3, 2010 - 1:00am

If this commander's quote represents the rules of engagement as they were applied during Operation Cast Lead, then it is a smoking gun because it proves the case that Israel was charged with. It proves the main revelations in the Breaking the Silence report. When I read the testimonies in that report – some of which were difficult to read – what was common to them was a change to rules of engagement so that either there were no rules, or they allowed soldiers to shoot anything that moved in the vicinity.

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