Gaza family says Israeli soldier shot children

www.smh.com.au...

SOUAD ABED RABBO was in her apartment on the edge of the Jabalya refugee camp near the Israeli border on January 7 when the call came from Israeli soldiers for everyone in the area to come outside. Her apartment had been bombed, and there was an Israeli tank unit approaching the building. "We started coming outside of the apartment, and we were waving white flags to show that we were not fighters," she said through a translator yesterday. Among the first to exit the building were one of her sons, Khaled, and his wife and three daughters, Amal, 2, Sammer, 4, and Souad, 7.

As the dust of the Israeli onslaught settles down, more of these horror stories emerge. These types of heinous acts are different to the strategic attack on the civilian population which is a war crime in itself. These crimes were perpetrated by individuals or groups of Israelis near homes of Palestinians.

Normally the m.o. would be a family coming out of their homes with a white flags. The Israelis don't shoot but wave people out. As the family fearfully enter daylight the Israelis aim at the children and fire.

Mortally wounded children are isolated with hails of gunfire to drive away their parents. Those that brave the attack are shot but the wounded child left to call for help.

news.bbc.co.uk...

www.guardian.co.uk...

www.gnn.tv...

www.presstv.ir...

www.uruknet.info...

I ws appalled by this war. Why didnt they get all the women and children away to a safe place. Israel could easily have done that.

www.tlaxcala.es...

reply to post by sueloujo


They didn't get them away to a safe place because they don't care. They kill these people and have been for the past 60 years, why would they even consider helping them?

Civilians (including women and children) die 100% of the time in any war. War is always a terrible thing. When a war begins I expect to see women and children laying dead in the street. I expect to see hatred from both sides driving people to do insane things, especially in a war where both sides have extreme ideologies.

Let's talk about some of the terrible things both sides have done over the years.

Hamas:
1. Suicide bombings targeting civilians
2. Rocket attacks targeting civilians
3. Using civilian structures as staging grounds for attacks

Israel:
1. Blockades on goods entering Gaza which hurt the civilian populace
2. White phosphorous and other inhumane weapons use......
3. Disregard for and the targeting of civilian.

Over the past 50 years Israel has killed a total of around 12,000 - 13,000 Palestinians. Approximately 3000 - 4000 Israelis have been killed. For a war that has been going on for quite some time those numbers are quite low compared to many wars that have raged across the world.

Masonwatcher, you can point out all the atrocities that Israel commits. You can be one sided in this war. You can support Hamas as much as you'd like. It doesn't change the fact that both sides are in the wrong. It doesn't change the fact that both sides have targeted civilians or had very little regard for them. Taking a one-sided stance on this conflict simply shows ignorance in the face of extreme ideologies. Taking a side also shows support for an extreme ideology. I like your posts in some ways because they show how terrible war can be. However, I think your purpose falls a little short of denying ignorance.

edit: Oh, and this story just shows how much hatred is between two sides in this conflict. It's amazing what hate can drive human beings to do. Whoever did this horrible act will hopefully receive justice in one way or another.

[edit on 24-1-2009 by Bugman82]

reply to post by Bugman82

Civilians (including women and children) die 100% of the time in any war.

You are 100% right about that. However, war is an armed conflict between opposing forces. It is not about the intentional killing of women and children. I don't know if any ethics are supposed to apply in war but they should.

To shoot someone means to aim and fire. It is to kill with intent. This thread is about an Israeli Soldier who shot children, he shot with the intention of killing. That is not defined as war, it is defined as murder.

Well said obliterated...

Murdering during a war is still murder...!!

and bugman..
whilst i sense your comments are well intentioned, i strongly believe that the balance you believe to be required(ie not one sided)is impossible.

impossible because there was no balance in the fighting...

Home made rockets against the 4th largest army in the world, armed with state of the art weaponry which was then used indiscriminately sounds decidedly unbalanced.

Highly trained Israeli soldiers versus Hamas' Dads Army...

There is NO balance...none at all...the people of Gaza have been herded into this open air prison and then bombed to smithereens and you say people are one sided..??

If truthful reporting of the Horrors of Gaza seem one sided, well sorry pal but so be it....
20 Israelis maximum dead versus 1300 and rising is hardly balanced is it...??
Shooting children waving white flags isnt balanced is it?

This whole F!@#in' slaughter was oh so one sided in favour of Israel...with the whole world looking the other way for 3 weeks..3 Weeks...!!!


No bugman....Hamas was not wrong....Israel was wrong....murderously so, and it P's me off when people like you,perhaps a little ignorant of the facts, come here and insist the blame is equal....

I dont know, This war just disgusts me. I dont support either side. I just find it to be a disgusting war. Not that there is such thing as an attractive war, but this one has just irked me. Im just so sick of the fighting that is going on over there. I am just sick of it.

I dont really know what else to say, except I am so ashamed of my fellow man. Not just for this war but for the fact that we continue to fight even though it has never done any good.

The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again expecting a different result each time. War is insane.

I just think its about time the human race grows up and starts looking at new ways to resolve our problem. War is insane it is time we took a sane approach to our conflicts.

[edit on 25-1-2009 by gimme_some_truth]

reply to post by gimme_some_truth


I think the only solution to end war is to put women in charge. Make a rule that all army people have to be pregnant women or women carrying babies and absolutely no men. I'm sure no one would even fire a shot.... maybe?

Or is humanity as we know it no longer humane?

What cold disdain Israelis have for Palestinians.
What hatred Israel has invited upon itself.

Please will this end. Please!

reply to post by Obliterated


You are kidding, right? I get a right telling off just for not washing the dishes properly or forgetting to feed the rabbits, God knows what the world would be like if you had Women in charge of Nations!

>shudders< (Only kidding Ladies, look at Maggie..she was awesome!)


Anyhoo, as for the topic.

It would seem that a variety of witnesses have confirmed the same basic story, that of a group of Israeli soldiers sitting on a tank eating crisps, who then turn on this group of women and children when they emerge from the house.

They were apparently no more than 15m away and were under no obvious threat, as demonstrated by their relaxed, crisp eating demeanour.

This, on the face of it, is a hideous murder. However, we all know the IDF child killers, at worst, get a few months in an Israeli prison and are then sent back to their unit. More often, the incidents are glossed over and no-one is punised.

Benoni, I agree with you 100%. The Israelis seem utterly incapable of understanding the concept of a proportional response. Look at the recent Gaza fighting and the 2006 Lebanon War.

I use it often, but their is a comparison of how this should go down. Look at how the UK behaved with the IRA.

Did we invade Eire with thousands of troops and tanks?

Did we bomb Dublin with aircraft?

Did we bulldoze houses in Cork?

Did we kill 100 Irish for every British citizen killed?

The disparity of forces between Israel and palestine is similiar to that between the UK and Eire. The UK could have obliterated Eire in a couple of weeks and slaughtered thousands after every bomb that went off, but we didn't.

Quite how Israel thinks it is justified in this wanton destruction for the sake of a few bottle rockets going off, that prior to their incursion had killed no-one, is beyond me.



[edit on 25/1/09 by stumason]

For some perspective please watch this video. Be-warned it is long and yes bias to some degree but does help one look the big picture from an additional angle.
Video

Her voice/rant alone may drive some nuts. Interesting none the less.

reply to post by Bugman82


Yes but usually the object is to minimize civilian casualties as much as possible, not blatantly mowing down innocent children for god's sake!!!

Those news reports are strongly anti-Semitic!


But you cant really just point the finger at Israel here. I think its that rush of power as a soldier... does terrible things to a man. To anyone. I mean lots of US soldiers killed civilians in Iraq. Deliberately. Blackwater was in the news quite a bit. Im sure things like this go on everywhere across the globe. Who's to say HAMAS wouldnt have done the same thing to Israelis, were they given some miracle of equivalence? Now they certainly would, at least.

Yes its despicable, but so it goes. If you guys havent realised by now the world is unjust. The only way we'll find peace is through war, once it consumes every last one of us.

Originally posted by benoni
No bugman....Hamas was not wrong....Israel was wrong....murderously so, and it P's me off when people like you,perhaps a little ignorant of the facts, come here and insist the blame is equal....

Both sides were wrong, however Israel is clearly more so due to the unbalance you mention.

Perhaps Israel should be given a new piece of land to settle on without any neighbours. The UK could show off here and give them the Falklands.

Originally posted by Ridhya
Those news reports are strongly anti-Semitic!

Anti-what?

Both Palestinians and Israelis are Semites.

reply to post by moniker


What about the inhabitants of the Falklands? Displace even more people so that some religious group can have a home? Why is it the only religion that seems to want an actual piece of land? I don't understand why Jews are treated as such a special case.

Why couldn't they have emigrated to Palestine peacefully, like many people do the world over, and live side by side with the Arabs and whoever else lived there?

This whole mess started when Israel was declared a Jewish state in 1947, then started ethically cleansing the Arab population and taking their land and homes, forcing hundreds of thousands to flee the massacres and brutality by the Irgun or other militant Jewish groups.

I stated clearly in my post that the hatred involved in war causes people to do crazy and insane things. Yes, I completely agree this is murder. A large part of war is murder. Hamas using suicide bombers to blow up as many civilians as possible is murder just as this incident and many other things Israel has done can be considered murder.

Originally posted by Bugman82
Over the past 50 years Israel has killed a total of around 12,000 - 13,000 Palestinians. Approximately 3000 - 4000 Israelis have been killed. For a war that has been going on for quite some time those numbers are quite low compared to many wars that have raged across the world.

[edit on 24-1-2009 by Bugman82]

WHERE ARE YOU GETTING YOUR FIGURES FROM? ISRAELI TV of HATRED?

ACTUALLY,

From UN data, the post-1967 avoidable mortality (excess mortality) in the Occupied Palestinian Territories totals 300,000 and the post-1967 under-5 infant mortality 183,000 (of which 90% has been avoidable) - as compared to 2,178 post-1967 Israeli terrorism deaths (Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs figures).

(And these figures are from 2006!)

source

With Israel using Depleted Uranium, Chemical weapons, Blockades and the deaths (direct and indirect consequential deaths from 2006-2009) the figure is even worse.

Now the above are UN figures (which they do dumb down a lot because of hint hint anyway).

Beware of the disinfo agent!

Both sides DO NOT HAVE equal blame:

If someone comes to one's house, takes it by force, kills one's children and rapes one's wife, kills one's family and keeps one in a dog kennel with no food and water and threatens one with eviction, death and spreads radiation all around him THEN BOTH sides do NOT have EQUAL blame!

Equal blame would be absolutely insane!

[edit on 25-1-2009 by Jinni]

I saw the footage where people were in the middle of the street, men, women and children, no one with weapons or rockets, only these poor people, then out of nowhere Israel dropped a bomb on them it was horrible, this was not the video in great contraversy that was posted a few weeks ago that turned out to be a pickup truck exploding with ammo.

There is no doubt in my mind, that the Israelis have one thing in mind and that is the extermination and removal of the Palestinians, so they can have that land for themselves at any cost, did the Indians retaliate at all cost to keep their land here in the U.S., you betcha, was what they did right, I will certainly say yes, there was an ex Israeli officer being interviewed on presstv last night that said exactly what many suspect, the Israelis want Gaza and they want to wipe out the Palestinians from their own land.

Some of the comments in this thread, to me, seem to miss one point. When there is discussion of murdering women and children I feel you must remember this. Hamas targets women and children, and then hides behind women and children. Then, they cry and call "foul" when the women and children they hide behind get injured or killed.

As much as I despise any war and especially the injury and/or death of anyone, blame must be placed where it belongs. If someone shoots a missle at someone else, and then hides in a church...they shouldn't be shocked that the church gets blown up. In this war, I believe, Hamas doesn't care how many of their women and children die...it benefits them in the media and in the eyes of the brain-washed citizens of Gaza that see them as heroes. They are not heroes...and the sooner the citizens of Gaza realize that, the better off they will be.

Again...just my opinion.