Operation Cast Lead Part 5 A Punishment Exercise
Amir Marmor, a gunner in a tank crew of a reserve armored battalion that operated in Jabalia, said: “The operation was marketed to us and the entire nation as a measured retaliation to the Hamas attacks, but to me it was like a punishment exercise. That was what it seemed like from the enormous extent of the destruction. We were there for a week and despite the fact that no one fired on us, the firing and demolitions continued incessantly. I am very doubtful how many of the demolitions can be justified. We were told to expect incoming fire from various directions; our first reaction was to blow up or bulldoze houses in a given direction so as to give us better lines of fire. But then no fire came from that direction, or any other. On another occasion we were told that an attack was expected and an artillery barrage was fired, but we didn’t see anyone moving there.”
The Goldstone Report reported: “In the morning of the 5th of January 2009, after the shelling of Wa’el al-Samouni’s house, two of the survivors took refuge in Asaad al-Samouni’s house ... the persons assembled in Asaad al-Samouni’s house walked out of the house and down al-Samouni Street to take Salah ad-Din Street in the direction of Gaza City ... They had been instructed by the soldiers to walk directly to Gaza City without stopping or diverting from the direct route. The men were still handcuffed and the soldiers had told them that they would be shot if they attempted to remove the handcuffs. On Salah ad-Din Street, just a few meters north of al-Samouni Street and in front of the Juha family house, a single or several of the Israeli soldiers positioned on the roofs of the houses opened fire. Iyad was struck in the leg and fell to the ground. Muhammad Asaad al-Samouni, who was walking immediately behind him, moved to help him, but an Israeli soldier on a rooftop ordered him to walk on. When he saw the red point of a laser beam on his body and understood that an Israeli soldier had taken aim at him, he desisted. The Israeli soldiers also fired warning shots at Muhammad Asaad al-Samouni’s father to prevent him from assisting Iyad to get back on his feet. Iyad al-Samouni’s wife and children were prevented from helping him by further warning shots. Fawzi Arafat, who was part of another group walking from the al-Samouni neighborhood to Gaza, told the Mission that he saw Iyad al-Samouni lying on the ground, his hands shackled with white plastic handcuffs, blood pouring from the wounds in his legs, begging for help. Fawzi Arafat stated that he yelled at an Israeli soldier “we want to evacuate the wounded man”. The soldier, however, pointed his gun at Iyad’s wife and children and ordered them to move on without him.
One soldier with the IDF said: “Most of the houses in the area we were in were turned into heaps of crumbling cement ... We expected really strong resistance and our commanders prepared us for the worst. We were so tense before we went in — and nothing. Not even light firearms were directed at us.”
According to Amnesty International: “The home of the Abu ‘Aisha family, at the northern end of the al-Shati (Beach) refugee camp in Gaza City was bombed at 1.30 a.m. on the 5th of January 2009. The strike killed ‘Amer Abu ‘Aisha, aged 45, his wife Naheel, 35, and three of their four children: Sayyed, aged 12, Muhammad, eight, and Ghaida, seven. A fourth child, 13-year-old daughter Dalal, the only survivor of the family, was staying with her aunt, in another house, and was thus spared. The bomb exploded where the family was sleeping. Other members of the extended family, ‘Amer’s father and three brothers and their families, also lived in the house; there were 33 inhabitants in all; some were injured by the collapsing walls.”
There were many examples of human shields being used. One IDF soldier stated: “The method used has a new name now, no longer “neighbor procedure,” now people are called “Johnnie.” They’re Palestinian civilians, and they’re called Johnnies and there were civilians there who stayed in spite of the flyers the army distributed before it went in. Most people did leave, but some civilians stayed to watch over the houses; perhaps they had nowhere else to go. Later we saw people there who could not walk, some simply stayed to keep watch. To every house we close in on, we send the neighbour in, “the Johnnie”...”
“Majdi Abed Rabbo, a father of five and a member of the PA security forces, told Amnesty International: “At about 10 a.m. on Monday the 5th of January soldiers came to my house and took me with them to a neighbour’s house where they were also keeping other neighbours. The soldiers were shooting from the house but I don’t know at what because I could not see. At about 2 p.m. a soldier took me outside, pointed to Abu Hatem’s house and told me to go into that house to take the weapons and the clothes of the armed men who were in that house, whom they had killed. I refused but they told me to obey. I went into the house and found three armed Qassam members alive. They told me to leave and not to come back and threatened to shoot me if I went back. I returned to the soldiers, who made me undress and turn around, and I then told them that the three were alive. They handcuffed me; they were shooting. Later they again sent me to check on the armed militants inside the house. I found one wounded and the others all right, who said: “Tell the officer that if he is a man, he can come up here himself.” I went back and told the soldiers and they cursed me and handcuffed me. I heard a helicopter approaching, followed by the sound of a missile exploding. The soldiers said that now they were sure they had killed the armed men in the house with the missile. But when I looked I saw that the missile had struck my house and not the house with the gunmen inside. I told the soldiers. At about midnight, between Monday and Tuesday, I was forced to go for a third time, to check if the gunmen were dead. I found two of the gunmen still alive but buried under the rubble; the third was still holding his weapon. I told the soldier, who got angrier and didn’t believe me and sent two teenagers, Jamal Qatari and Zidane, to take photos. The two refused but the soldiers beat them and so they went and took photos and then the soldiers sent in a dog. By then it was about 10 or 11 a.m.”
A similar story was recounted by a soldier of the IDF: “There weren’t many encounters; just a few. In one case, our men tried to get them to come out. Then they opened fire, fired some anti-tank missiles at the house and at some point, brought in a D-9, bulldozer, and combat helicopters. There were three armed men inside. The helicopters fired anti-tank missiles and again the neighbor (code word for a Palestinian used as a human shield) was sent in. At first, he told them that nothing had happened to them yet, they were still in there. Again, helicopters were summoned and fired, I don’t know at what stage of escalation (in the use of force). The neighbor was sent in once again. He said that two were dead and one was still alive, so a D-9 was brought in and started demolishing the house over him until the neighbor went in, the last armed man came out and was caught and passed on to the Shabak...”
This was not, Amnesty International discovered, an isolated incident: “Akram Abed Rabbo, a father of six ... told Amnesty International that he had been taken from his home in the early morning (about 2-3 a.m.) on the 6th of January by Israeli soldiers who ... used him as a “human shield” and forced him to inspect several houses in the area over a three-day period. He said: “The soldiers sent me into the houses first and then they sent in the dog and only after that they went into the houses themselves. I didn’t find anything in the houses I inspected, but I was afraid. Also, in the meantime I had no idea where my wife, who is pregnant, and my children were.”
“Abu Abdallah told Amnesty International: “At about 10.30 a.m. on the 5th of January a group of soldiers entered our home and locked all of us in the basement while they went upstairs. They took our mobile phone and did not allow us to move. They took all the blankets and mattresses. We had no food and no water. The children were scared, cold, hungry and thirsty but we had nothing. We were kept like that for two days. We heard the soldiers laughing and shooting upstairs. We were scared. After a day the younger children were desperate for water and I took the bit of water, which remained in the cistern of the toilet to give to them; there was no other alternative. After two days, on the morning of the 7th of January, the soldiers threw us out of the house. I asked to go upstairs to fetch some clothes and shoes but they did not allow us. We had to leave barefoot and with only what we were wearing when the soldiers first came into the house two days earlier.” The house was later destroyed.”
A number of soldiers have testified that: “Our specific goal was to fragment the Gaza Strip.” A battalion commander “defined the operation goals: 2000 dead terrorists, not just stopping the missiles launched at (Israeli) communities around the Gaza strip. He claimed this would bring the Hamas down to its knees. This number would be a success for the army.” Given that anyone and everyone, whether men, women or children were classified as “terrorists” a high civilian death toll was clearly intended.