Palestinian envoy raises ire of Canadian gov’t
Egyptian TV’s interview with Shalit shocks some as exploitation
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – It is not being hailed as a gesture with implications for Middle East peace, but there is widespread relief over the release of Israeli prisoner Galid Shalit by Palestine’s Hamas after five years, and 477 Palestinians who have been held for different lengths of time.
Mid-morning Swiss time Shalit’s arrival in Egypt had been confirmed to Israeli authorities, who loaded 477 prisoners onto Red Cross buses, for release to the West Bank and Gaza, according to the Jerusalem Post. They will cross into Egypt, and from there bused to their homes, once Shalit is on Israeli territory. “Schalit will be guarded by soldiers of the Israel Air Force’s 669 unit, who will accompany him until he is home safe in Mitzpe Hila,” the Israeli newspaper reports.
Another 500 Palestinians are scheduled to be released at a later date.
Palestine remains in the news in Canada for an unrelated incident: “Linda Sobeh Ali, the chargé d’affaires of the Palestinian delegation in Ottawa, is just one cut above persona non grata,” reports the Globe & Mail. “The Canadian government called her in for a high-level dressing down, made a formal protest to the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank, and has decided to ‘limit communication’ with her until a replacement arrives.” She upset Ottawa by tweeting a link to a YouTube video of a tearful Palestinian girl who is shouting “with passion, reciting a poem in Arabic, ‘I am Palestinian.’ The English subtitles on the video include a passage where millions are called ‘to a war that raze the injustice and oppression and destroy the Jews.’”
Shalit was interviewed by Egyptian TV before he was transferred to Israel. The 24-year-old appeared short of breath but otherwise healthy and he said he was nervous. Israeli media reported that several officials were shocked at what they saw as “exploitation” by media before he was released to his homeland.
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – Palestinian and Israeli authorities are saying that they have reached an agreement that will free anywhere from 450 to more than 1,000 Palestinian prisoners in Israel in exchange for the freedom of soldier Gilad Shalit, who has been held for five years. The swap will reportedly take place next week, the Israeli government confirmed to the country’s media Tuesday 11 October, but the number of prisoners involved varies depending on the source, with Hamas talking about more than 1,000.
Links to other sites: Aljazeera, Haaretz, Jerusalem Post
Judge and UN report author says report would have been different if he’d known what he now knows
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - Israel will ask the United Nations to revise the Goldstone Report on the 2008-2009 Gaza war, following publication 1 April of an Op-Ed article by judge Richard Goldstone in the Washington Post.
Goldstone says that the conclusions drawn by his fact-finding report for the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, which included allegations that Israel may have intentionally targeted civilians, were based on less information than is now available.
“The final report by the U.N. committee of independent experts — chaired by former New York judge Mary McGowan Davis — that followed up on the recommendations of the Goldstone Report has found that ‘Israel has dedicated significant resources to investigate over 400 allegations of operational misconduct in Gaza’ while ‘the de facto authorities (i.e., Hamas) have not conducted any investigations into the launching of rocket and mortar attacks against Israel.’
“Our report found evidence of potential war crimes and ‘possibly crimes against humanity’ by both Israel and Hamas. That the crimes allegedly committed by Hamas were intentional goes without saying — its rockets were purposefully and indiscriminately aimed at civilian targets.
“The allegations of intentionality by Israel were based on the deaths of and injuries to civilians in situations where our fact-finding mission had no evidence on which to draw any other reasonable conclusion.”
Goldstone does not go as far as “retracting” statements made in his report, as the Jerusalem Post reports, but he does say that “if I had known then what I know now, the Goldstone Report would have been a different document.” The Guardian qualifies his article as having “expressed regret that his report may have been inaccurate.”
Apology, retraction, and greater documentation in the future
A senior Israeli defense department officer told the Jerusalem Post that Goldstone’s remarks will not be enough alone to stop a future investigation, and that Israel must document every action in Gaza in order to avoid another investigation.
Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu Saturday said he will insist the UN rescind the report, according to Bloomberg and Israeli media, and South Africa’s IOL (Independent Online) news reports Monday that President Shimon Peres says he wants an apology from Goldstone.
US Jewish groups, notably the influential American Jewish Committee, over the weekend called for Goldstone to retract his report and ask the UN to approve a revised version, according to the Jerusalem Post. “‘The Washington Post is not the place for Judge Goldstone to recant the biased and damaging UN report he wrote on the Gaza conflict,’ said AJC Executive Director David Harris.”
Background story on Goldstone report and the UN Security Council, and initial report, October 2009 GenevaLunch
Israeli tank fire injured five people when a house in Gaza was hit, medics have told Reuters. The injuries were not confirmed by Israel, but if the information is accurate, its brings to 24 the number of people wounded in Gaza since Monday 21 March. Israel says it responded with air attacks after rocket and mortar fire from an area controlled by Hamas. Hamas, for its part, claimed responsibility for a dozen attacks on Israel over the weekend.
France has called on the two parties to use restraint.
The New York Times, which generally gives generous space to Israeli-Gaza conflict news, barely found room on its online “front” page for the story, in the face of continuing news from Libya and Japan.
Links to other sites: Jerusalem Post, New York Times, Reuters
Two local staff members of the British Consulate in Jerusalem have been charged in connection with a plot to fire rockets at a local stadium during a football match. The men, employed as maintenance personnel, were detained 2 January with three other men said to be linked to Hamas and charged with supplying them with weapons.
Consulate staff were informed of the investigation. “We have been told by the Israeli authorities that the investigation into our two employees is unrelated to the work they do at the consulate. It is not appropriate to comment further on what is an ongoing legal process”, a Foreign Office spokesman said.
Links to other sites: Jerusalem Post, Guardian, Press Association
The unfolding drama of the thriller-style assassination of Hamas commander Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, in Dubai in early 2010 is taking investigators to Poland.
German prosecutors are confirming that a man in Poland may have fraudulently obtained a German passport used in connection with the Hamas murder and are seeking his extradition.
The request is expected to strain relations with Israel, country both Poland and Germany have close ties with.
Background: GenevaLunch
Link to the full story: Time/Yahoo News
Ireland is expelling an Israeli diplomat over the near-certain manufacture of eight fake Irish passports by an agency of the Israeli government, says Foreign Minister Micheal Martin, in a veiled reference to Massud, the Israeli secret service. The passports were used by agents who carried out the murder of Hamas leader Mahmoud al-Mabhouh in Dubai in 2009. Martin noted that the Irish government had come to “the inescapable conclusion that an Israeli government agency was responsible for the misuse and, most likely, the manufacture of the forged Irish passports associated with the murder of Mr Mabhouh” following an investigation. It worked closely with the UK and Australia during the investigation. They, too, have expelled Israeli diplomats over the affair.
Links to other sites: BBC, Irish Times
Lyons, France / Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Dubai police have added 16 more international arrest warrants to the 11 already issued, linked to the 20 January death of Hamas military leader Mahmoud Al Mabhouh. Interpol has added the new warrants to its existing Red Notices for the case. Interpol, based in Lyons, insists on the likely use of identity theft by the murderers. “Since Intepol has reason to believe that the suspects linked to this murder have stolen the identities of real people, the Red Notices specify that the names used were aliases used to commit murder,” its web site notes. “Interpol has officially made public the photos and the names fraudulently used on the passports in order to limit the ability of accused murderers from traveling freely using the same false passports.”
The international criminal police organization says it contacted the Geneva-based World Economic Forum in January to alert it to the increased risk of terrorists traveling on documents using stolen identities, which makes it easier for them to avoid detection.
Dubai police are now saying that Hamas military commander Mahmoud al-Mabhouh was first drugged with a muscle relaxant, then suffocated in a hotel room. They believe evidence is more clearly pointing to Israel’s Mossad undercover agency, but Israel has not commented on the latest details or its possible role. Police Sunday 28 February said the drug, succinylcholine, was used to make it appear the victim had not struggled, possibly in order to stage what would look like a natural death.
Links to other sites: Dubai police report, Reuters
The number of suspects in the murder of Hamas leader Mahmoud al-Mabhouh in Dubai in December has now grown to 26, say Dubai police, with Australian passports reportedly used. Australia called in the Israeli ambassador and issued a sharp warning that it will not tolerate any government condoning or being behind the theft of its citizens’ passports, with suspicion growing that Israel was behind the murder. Australia has reportedly warned Israel in the past not to use Australian passports for its espionage activities. The Israeli government has said there is no proof that Mossad, its secret service, is involved. Some of the Australians identified, who are living in Israel, were shocked to learn of what appears to be several cases of identity theft.
The unfolding drama of the thriller-style assassination of Hamas commander Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, killed 20 January at the al-Bustan hotel in Dubai, leaves a growing number of questions unanswered, and Britain is now joining the investigations. Stephen Lander, the head of Serious Organized Crime Agency (Soca) and former MI5 (British secret service) boss, has been put in charge of looking into the apparent use of British passports by the team of 11 who staged the murder. Austria and France are involved in trying to track the murderers.
It is unclear if passports were forged, stolen, or valid documents. Israeli spy agency Moussad appears to be a strong suspect as the organization behind the killing, but Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman said Wednesday 17 February that there is no proof of this, while not denying that Israel may have been involved. Rafi Eitan, a high-ranking Mossad official, denies any involvement by the group, according to Haaretz.
Confusion over the passports reigns, with Ireland and Britain saying they believed passports for their countries were likely forged. Meanwhile, Haaretz reports that “Men with the same names as seven of the 11 suspects whose European passport photos were distributed by Dubai this week reside in Israel, and those reached by reporters insisted their identities had been stolen and noted the pictures were not a match.
“Six of the men are Britons who immigrated to Israel. The seventh is an American Israeli, whose name Dubai said was on a German passport used by one of the assassins.” The Jerusalem Post says the Israeli immigrants were astonished to find their names on the list of suspects issued by Dubai.
Links to other sites: Al Jazeera, Haaretz, Jerusalem Post, Times, UK and timeline issued by Dubai police on Channel 4 TV, Belfast
The Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) have denied that two high-ranking military men involved in last year’s Israeli military operation in Gaza were disciplined for using phosphorus in a built-up area. The IDF is responding to an Israeli government report submitted to the United Nations this past weekend outlining its investigation into alleged abuses and crimes during last year’s incursion into the Gaza strip.
The two men were said to have been disciplined when they authorized the use of white phosphorus shells in an attack on a Hamas position two days before the end of operation Cast Lead. Some of the shells landed in a UN compound and wounded three people.
The Israeli government report is a partial response to last year’s Goldstone Report which alleges possible war crimes against civilians by both Israeli forces and Hamas before and during the conflict. The IDF had repeatedly denied the use of phosphorus shells, which are permitted in battlefield conditions but not when they may endanger civilians. The shells are used as incendiary devices and burn for hours.
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – The UN Human Rights Council, meeting in a special session 15 and 16 October, has approved the report into possible war crimes during the December 2008-January 2009 incursion by Israel into the Gaza Strip. The council will forward the report to the UN General Assembly for consideration. At the end of the session countries voted, 25-6, to approve the report, and 11 countries abstained.
Israel argued that the report was one-sided and ignored the attacks by Hamas on Israeli civilians which precipitated the war. The US voted against approval, saying that it would hamper Mideast peace efforts.
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – The UN Human Rights Council in Geneva will reopen a debate Thursday 15 October on the conduct of both sides in last winter’s brief war in Gaza, Palestine, between Israel and Hamas, the Gaza strip’s political authority. A report by former South African judge Richard Goldstone suggests both armed groups may have committed war crimes. It recommends that they conduct their own impartial investigations within six months or have the case referred to the International Criminal Court. A call by Libya for the UN in New York to take up the report by strongly rebuffed by Israel which said late Wednesday 14 October that as long as the report is “on the table” there can be no peace negotiations with Palestine.
The Palestinian Authority (PA), the nominal representative of the Palestinians, initially asked for the debate on the report to be deferred, but it came under sharp criticism from Hamas, which has controlled the Gaza strip since elections in 2007 forced out Fatah and the PA.
Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - Israel’s ambassador to Switzerland, Ilan Elgar, will meet Thursday in Bern with the Swiss foreign affairs department to discuss a recent visit by a Hamas delegation. Israel’s foreign affairs ministry spokesperson Ygal Palmor 15 July strongly criticized Switzerland for receving the group, which he says visited Geneva two weeks go to meet with an NGO (non-governmental oreganization). He noted that although Switzerland is not a member of the European Union, Hamas is on an EU list of groups banned for terrorist activities.
CNN reports that on the eve of an Arab summit in Kuwait the Arab world is being pulled in a tug of world that has Egypt and other countries who want to broker a peace between Israel and Hamas pitted against nations like Qatar who are more sympathetic to Hamas and its goals. Meanwhile, in Gaza, the ICRC‘s latest update on the humanitarian aid situation says it was “a devastating blow” when renewed fighting 12 January knocked out recently repaired power supplies from Israel to Gaza, essential for hospitals and other parts of the civilian infrastructure.
Israel and Hamas leaders in Gaza are both refusing the ceasefire proposed by the UN and leaders from around the world. BBC
Hamas and Israeli troops were fighting after Israeli ground troops entered the Gaza Strip on the eighth day of fighting in the area. Reuters
Reuters reports that the “fiercest offensive in decades” continued Monday in the Gaza Strip, with Israel readying troops and tanks for a ground attack that looks increasingly likely. Three people were killed in Israel by rockets launched from Gaza. The wire service credits medical officials in Gaza as saying 335 people are dead and some 700 injured following Israeli air attacks. Related stories, Jerusalem Post, Al-Jazeera
The Israeli-Hamas six month Gaza truce negotiated by Egypt ended Friday with each side accusing the other of breaking it. Israel says Hamas, which fired rockets over the weekend, injuring one person, has extended the reach of its rockets during the ceasefire, and Hamas says Israel has not lifted its blockade of Gaza according to the terms of the truce. BBC
