"Israel's dirty secrets in Gaza" is how Donald Macintyre heads his front page report in today's Independent Newspaper. Subheaded "Army veterans reveal how they gunned down innocent Palestinian families and destroyed homes and farms" says it all. My heart sank as I read Macintyre's report from Jerusalem. There's an option to view photos. I'm a coward. I don't want to see any more photos from Gaza. I want the suffering on both sides to end. How bad does it have to get before the international community will act? Or perhaps the question is "How long will Barak Obama wait before he acts?""Israel was last night confronting a major challenge over the conduct of its 22-day military offensive in Gaza after testimonies by its own soldiers revealed that troops were allowed and, in some cases, even ordered to shoot unarmed Palestinian civilians.
The testimonies – the first of their kind to emerge from inside the military – are at marked variance with official claims that the military made strenuous efforts to avoid civilian casualties and tend to corroborate Palestinian accusations that troops used indiscriminate and disproportionate firepower in civilian areas during the operation. In one of the testimonies shedding harsh new light on what the soldiers say were the permissive rules of engagement for Operation Cast Lead, one soldier describes how an officer ordered the shooting of an elderly woman 100 metres from a house commandeered by troops." read more here.
