From the Jewish Telegraphic Agency
Israeli veterans say lax rules of engagement led to destruction in Gaza
(JTA) — Testimonies from over 60 Israeli soldiers who fought in last summer’s Gaza war said that “permissive” rules of engagement led to indiscriminate artillery fire that caused unnecessary damage to Palestinian civilians.
The 237-page report released by the group Breaking the Silence on Monday called the Israel Defense Forces’ behavior during the military operation titled Protective Edge an “ethical failure … from the top of the chain of command.” The report features interviews with combatants and soldiers who served in command centers.
The soldiers described shooting at innocent civilians and aimlessly destroying property and vegetation.
“If we don’t see someone waving a white flag, screaming, ‘I give up’ or something — then he’s a threat and there’s authorization to open fire,” said a first sergeant serving in the Mechanized Infantry in Gaza.
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From PressTV
Bomb blast targets Hamas security HQ in Gaza; ISIL blamed
A bomb explosion has targeted the security headquarters of Palestinian Islamic resistance movement, Hamas, in the Israeli-besieged Gaza Strip after an ISIL-linked Salafi group demanded the release of its members from Hamas’ jails.
The Monday blast took place in Gaza City just prior to dawn and damaged the building’s perimeter wall, the AFP reported citing witnesses.
An online statement issued by a radical anti-Hamas Takfiri group just hours before the blast threatened to “act against chosen targets” if its captive members were not released within 72 hours.
However, it was not immediately clear if the statement and the explosion were linked since the Takfiri elements in Gaza have issued similar threats in the past.
“Hamas and its security forces have 72 hours from the release of this statement to free all Salafist prisoners,” said the statement from a group calling itself the Supporters of the ISIL in al-Quds (Jerusalem).
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From PressTV
Kill Gazans ‘armed or unarmed,’ Israel told soldiers
Israeli soldiers have testified that they were ordered to “kill any person” they saw in the latest Israeli aggression against the besieged Gaza Strip.
The testimonies by as many as 60 Israeli soldiers have been collected and released in a 237-page report entitled “This is how we fought in Gaza” by the Israeli NGO Breaking the Silence.
“The instructions were to shoot right away. Whoever you spot — be they armed or unarmed, no matter what. The instructions are very clear. Any person you run into, that you see with your eyes — shoot to kill,” the NGO quoted an Israeli soldier as saying in the report.
A testimony by another Israeli soldier disclosed that Israeli forces shot and killed two Palestinian women talking on the phone around one kilometer away from the war zone. A subsequent probe showed that the women were unarmed, the soldier said, adding, “We moved on, and they were listed as terrorists.”
Another Israeli soldier said that the soldiers involved in the onslaught on the Gaza Strip had been instructed to “open fire everywhere, first thing as you go in… the assumption being that the moment we went in, anyone who dared poke his head out was a terrorist”.
An account by another Israeli soldier revealed that Israeli tanks had also been ordered to select at random and target buildings.
In excess of 100 examples of misconduct by Israeli soldiers during the summer onslaught have been documented in the report.
“The guiding military principle of ‘minimum risk to our forces, even at the cost of harming innocent civilians’ alongside efforts to deter and intimidate the Palestinians, led to massive and unprecedented harm to the population and the civilian infrastructure in the Gaza Strip,” the NGO said.
An Israeli report in March said that more than 350 Israeli soldiers who took part in the deadly Israeli war had received treatment for symptoms related to post-traumatic stress, including disorientation, low productivity, and recurring nightmares.
At least 10 Israeli soldiers were also reported to have committed suicide last year, including four who had taken part in the latest Gaza war.
Israel started its airstrikes against the Palestinian territory in early July 2014 and later expanded its military campaign with a ground invasion. The war ended in late August that year.
Nearly 2,200 Palestinians, including 577 children, were killed in Israel’s 50-day onslaught and over 11,100 others, including nearly 3,380 children, 2,088 women and 410 elderly people, were injured. Scores of Israelis were also killed during the war. Moreover, the UN said up to 1,500 children were orphaned in the Israeli war.
Last September, Palestinian experts said it costs more than USD 7.5 billion to rebuild the besieged Gaza Strip and that the process would take “five years if Israel removed its blockade on Gaza entirely.”
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From The Times of Israel
US denies Syrian civilians killed in coalition airstrike
Opposition group claims seven children among dead in American-led attack on Islamic State in Aleppo province
The US military denied Sunday a report that strikes led by Washington had killed at least 52 civilians in northern Syria earlier this week, saying those killed were actually fighters.
Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitor director Rami Abdel Rahman had told AFP that seven children were among the dead from US-led coalition strikes overnight Thursday into Friday on the village of Birmahle in Aleppo province.
He had warned the toll could rise as rescuers were battling to save 13 people trapped under rubble.
“US Central Command can confirm that Coalition forces conducted airstrikes in the vicinity of Birmahle, Syria, on April 30, destroying several ISIL fighting positions and striking more than 50 ISIL fighters,” command spokesman Major Curt Kellogg said in a statement, using one of the acronyms — in addition to IS and ISIS — by which the Islamic State group is known.
“We currently have no indication that any civilians were killed in these strikes.”
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From the Jewish Telegraphic Agency
Jean-Marie Le Pen suspended by party he founded and now led by daughter
(JTA) — Far-right French politician Jean-Marie Le Pen was suspended from the party he founded and his daughter now leads over his anti-Semitic rhetoric.
The top executive authority of the National Front handed down the suspension on Monday after Le Pen appeared at a disciplinary hearing over statements he made last month in which he told French TV that he does not regret saying in 1987 that the Nazi gas chambers were “just a detail of World War II.”
In addition to the suspension, party members will hold a special meeting in three months to decide whether to strip the title of honorary president from Le Pen, the French news agency AFP reported.
In recent years, Marine Le Pen, 46, has rejected her father’s revisionist and anti-Semitic views and courted French Jews in a move that many observers said was designed to rehabilitate the anti-immigrant party’s name and gain mainstream acceptance. Since she took the helm in 2011, the once-isolated party has achieved victories in some town and county legislatures. Marine Le Pen has flirted with the idea of a presidential run in 2017.
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From the Jewish Telegraphic Agency
Florida prisons ordered to serve kosher meals
(JTA) — Inmates in Florida’s prisons who request kosher meals must receive them, a federal judge in Miami ruled.
U.S. District Judge Patricia Seitz issued the order late last week after the Justice Department filed a lawsuit against the state Department of Corrections on behalf of 13 inmates. The decision is the latest following years of legal wrangling.
The two sides have until Wednesday to come up with a way to implement the plan.
The Florida case dates to 2010 when a Jewish prisoner serving life for the 1995 murder of his parents, Bruce Rich, said the state’s refusal to provide him with a kosher meal violated his rights under federal law.
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From The Times of Israel
Miliband mocked for Mosaic monolith
British Labour leader unveils stone slab with party promises ahead of May 7 election
In a bid to show his political commitments, UK Labour leader and prime ministerial hopeful Ed Miliband unveiled what election promises his party had carved in stone — literally.
Miliband showed off an eight-foot-tall limestone monument listing his key manifesto promises, including immigration control and higher living standards for working families, ahead of the May 7 elections.
“We will restore faith in politics by delivering what we promised at this general election,” he said.
Cameron mocked the idea, calling it Miliband’s “tombstone.”
Conservative London Mayor Boris Johnson, who’s running for a return to parliament in this week’s general elections, mocked the move, asking of the Jewish politician, “Who does he think he is? Moses?”
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From The Times of Israel
Jewish candidate Sanders kicks off White House bid
Independent running for Democratic nomination heads to New Hampshire to raise money, win support
MANCHESTER, New Hampshire — One day after raising $1.5 million in donations, Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders was out to convince supporters in the early voting state of New Hampshire on Saturday he could raise the $40 million to $50 million to run a competitive presidential primary campaign against Democratic front-runner Hillary Rodham Clinton.
“The question to me is not whether we can raise as much money as our opponents — we can’t — the question is whether we can raise enough money to run a strong, credible and winning campaign,” Sanders said. “And based on this first day I believe that we can.”
Sanders, an independent, announced Thursday that he’ll run in the Democratic presidential primary, making him Clinton’s first official primary opponent. A self-described “democratic socialist,” Sanders, who is Jewish, plans to focus his message heavily on income inequality, climate change and reforming the campaign finance system. After addressing supporters at a house party, he spoke Saturday afternoon to the New Hampshire chapter of the AFL-CIO.
Sanders could fill a void to Clinton’s left that has some Democrats clamoring for Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren to get into the race. Warren has said she has no plans to run. Diane St. Germain, a New Hampshire voter, said she hopes Sanders’ entrance into the race pushes Clinton to the left.
“If this does nothing but do that for Hillary, that would cause me to possibly consider her,” St. Germain said.
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From The Times of Israel
On GOP campaign trail, fear over Iran and loathing for Obama
Ahead of primary, Republican candidates unite in expressing support for Israel and disdain for Tehran
COLUMBIA, South Carolina (AP) — Republican presidential hopefuls eventually will have to start running against each other. But, for now, many are content to run against President Barack Obama, Iran and Middle East extremists.
At the South Carolina Republican convention on Saturday, Jeb Bush, the former Florida governor, called the president’s international stewardship “an unmitigated disaster.
Former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum called Obama “weak.” Rick Perry, Texas’ former governor, blasted “vacillation” by the administration. Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina called the president “feckless” on the world stage. And Graham and Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas echoed each other as they accused Obama of “leading from behind.”
All five pledged loyalty to Israel and expressed varying levels of disdain for Iran.
The rhetoric — similar to what other potential GOP nominees are saying in early voting states — plays well at GOP venues where Obama is a reviled figure: the audience whooped, hollered and occasionally shouted “Amen” in response to the candidates.
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