Human rights groups protest Israeli government killings
Adalah, Al Mezan demand immediate criminal investigation of Israeli killings in Gaza on Land Day. Israeli military officials publicly stated in advance of the protests that the army would employ weapons and tactics that violate international – and even Israeli – law.
Al Mezan Center for Human Rights and Adalah – The Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel are calling on Israeli authorities today, 31 March 2018, to demand an immediate criminal investigation into the Israeli military’s killing of more than a dozen Palestinians during Land Day protests in the Gaza Strip yesterday.
Tens of thousands of Palestinian civilians, including women and children, participated in a protest yesterday near the border fence between Israel and the Gaza Strip.
The Israeli military responded with live ammunition from snipers and tank fire, plastic-coated steel bullets, and tear gas grenades launched from drones, leaving more than a dozen dead, including a farmer and several protestors, and upwards of 1,087 wounded including 204 minors, according to initial reports. At least 40 of the wounded are listed in serious or critical condition in Gaza hospitals.
Adalah and Al Mezan sent the urgent letter to Israeli Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit and Chief Military Advocate General (MAG) Sharon Afek demanding they order an immediate criminal investigation into the Israeli military killings.
Adalah Attorney Suhad Bishara wrote in the letter to Israeli officials that the Israeli military’s use of these types of weapons to disperse protests and demonstrations by unarmed civilians is a blatant violation of international laws prohibiting harm to civilians.
Al Mezan and Adalah further stressed that “on the eve of the planned protest, on 29 March 2018, we sent a letter to the army warning that the use of live fire to disperse demonstrations or crowds – by its very nature – results in deadly outcomes, and that this use [of force] is prohibited by international law and even by Israeli law. To our dismay and horror, this is exactly what happened.
“We referred in our letter to statements from [Israeli] defense establishment officials who said in advance of the demonstration that they would use force against protestors. We also noted that these statements attest to a deliberate intention to violate the basic principles of international criminal law.”
United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres called yesterday for an independent and transparent investigation into the deaths and injuries along Gaza’s border with Israel.
CLICK HERE to read the Al Mezan-Adalah letter [Hebrew]
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Ray Hanania is an award winning political and humor columnist who analyzes American and Middle East politics, and life in general. He is an author of several books.
Hanania covered Chicago Politics and Chicago City Hall from 1976 through 1992 at the Daily Southtown and the Chicago Sun-Times. He began writing in 1975 publishing The Middle Eastern Voice newspaper in Chicago (1975-1977). He later published “The National Arab American Times” newspaper (2004-2007).
Hanania writes weekly columns on Middle East and American Arab issues as Special US Correspondent for the Arab News ArabNews.com, at TheArabDailyNews.com, and at SuburbanChicagoland.com. He has published weekly columns in the Jerusalem Post newspaper, YNetNews.com, Newsday, the Orlando Sentinel, Houston Chronical, and Arlington Heights Daily Herald.
Hanania is the recipient of four (4) Chicago Headline Club “Peter Lisagor Awards” for Column writing. In November 2006, he was named “Best Ethnic American Columnist” by the New American Media. In 2009, Hanania received the prestigious Sigma Delta Chi Award for Writing from the Society of Professional Journalists. He is the recipient of the MT Mehdi Courage in Journalism Award. He was honored for his writing skills with two (2) Chicago Stick-o-Type awards from the Chicago Newspaper Guild. In 1990, Hanania was nominated by the Chicago Sun-Times editors for a Pulitzer Prize for his four-part series on the Palestinian Intifada.
His writings have also been honored by two national Awards from ADC for his writing, and from the National Arab American Journalists Association.
Hanania is the US Special Correspondent for the Arab News Newspaper, covering Middle East and Arab American issues. He writes for the Southwest News newspaper group writing on mainstream American issues.
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