Bulletin No49 aout 2024 The “most moral army in the world” uses human shields
Our lives are more important than theirs
The Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported on August 13 that the Zionist occupation army was using Palestinians as human shields for risky operations, including inspecting tunnels that could be booby-trapped. This practice is illegal, but known to the Israeli general staff.
Haaretz conducted an investigation and reported several testimonies from IDF soldiers and commanders indicating that they used Gazans for their operations. Dressed like soldiers with sneakers instead of boots, handcuffed and equipped with a camera, the Palestinians forced to work for the Israeli army are easily recognizable. They are called " shawish ," an Arabic word of Turkish origin that means " sergeant ." They are notably sent into Hamas tunnels to secure the premises and take the risk of encountering explosive devices.
" Our lives are more important than theirs ," one Israeli soldier told Haaretz. These actions by the occupation army are being carried out in full view of the general staff. The investigation reports that several months ago, the army had picked up two Gazans, aged 16 and 20 respectively, and had received instructions to use them as human shields.
Entering houses occupied by Hamas
Moreover, according to the investigation, the Israeli army also used elderly men dressed as soldiers to enter homes supposedly occupied by Palestinian resistance fighters in the Gazan enclave. According to a soldier reported by Haaretz , Palestinians are encouraged to carry out an operation with the promise of setting them free. One soldier said that for each operation in the tunnels, the army sends a Palestinian ten minutes earlier to ensure that there are no explosives at the scene and to avoid an ambush by Hamas fighters. This practice has reportedly divided the settler troops, with some saying they are in favor and others expressing reservations.
Haaretz also reports that this method had already been used during the second intifada in 2002 when it was necessary to enter the homes of Palestinian suspects. A procedure that had been condemned by the Supreme Court.
Israeli army units disguised as Gazans
In addition to using Palestinians to carry out high-risk operations, Israelis also hide among the population to obtain intelligence or neutralize wanted persons. In Hebrew, the term " mista'arvim " literally means " those who want to pass themselves off as Arabs ." This name covers several special units of the Israeli Border Police, which have received 15 months of training, four of which are entirely devoted to learning Palestinian traditions, language and way of thinking, including civilian camouflage (hair dye, contact lenses, clothing). The goal is to go unnoticed and gain the trust of locals in order to accumulate information, apprehend militants by surprise or assassinate adversaries.
This technique was notably used by the Israeli army to recover four captives last June, as reported by the Lebanese newspaper L'Orient-Le Jour . Israeli spies trained to infiltrate the Palestinian population had rented a house in Nousseirat, pretending to be wealthy displaced persons from Rafah, a few streets from the square where the captives were being held. For several days, Israeli agents gleaned information on the building and the situation of the hostages, preparing the ground for the intervention of army commandos. A job carried out entirely undercover by " mista'arvim " units, who have a perfect command of cultural codes, the Gazan dialect and blend into a population where everyone becomes an unsuspected informer. The operation had caused more than 274 victims and 700 wounded, the Gaza Ministry of Health had indicated.
This Israeli unit has existed since the creation of the Hebrew state to gather information on the Palestinians. Initially, the agents were Jews from other neighboring Arab countries.
The International Court of Justice and the Palestinian State
The ambiguity of resolution 242
After the invasion of the occupied territories by the Zionist colonial state in 1967, the Security Council, under the influence of the USSR, adopted Resolution 242, which proclaimed " the inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by war ."
But the two versions of the text, French and English , although of equal legal value, diverge as to the obligation of a "withdrawal of Israeli armed forces from the territories occupied during the recent conflict" , in French, or "from territories occupied" , in English.
The use of the English version will justify the partial and negotiated withdrawal by Israel, under the aegis of Washington, "from occupied territories" , instead of the demand for the evacuation of all territories conquered by arms. This is the famous principle of "land for peace" from which the peace treaties signed by Israel with Egypt in 1979, then with Jordan, fifteen years later, derive. On the other hand, the Israeli-Palestinian agreements were concluded, from 1993 to 1995, on the basis of the recognition of Israel by the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), but without Israel committing in return to evacuating the Palestinian territories occupied in 1967.
Successive Israeli governments have worked to undermine any assertion of Palestinian sovereignty, contenting themselves with delegating limited powers to the Palestinian Authority (PA) established through the gradual and partial withdrawals of the Zionist army. The colonial state was able to consolidate its domination through a differentiated management of "the" Palestinian territories: East Jerusalem was de facto annexed in 1967, officially in 1980; the PA only managed to manage part of the West Bank, where Israeli colonization continued and then intensified; the Gaza Strip, unilaterally evacuated in 2005, was placed under blockade two years later, in reaction to Hamas' electoral victory.
The ICJ decision
The International Court of Justice in The Hague, referred to in 2022 by the UN General Assembly, issued an advisory opinion in July which, despite its lack of binding nature, should serve as a reference for any relaunch of the Middle East peace process. Not only did the ICJ declare the Israeli occupation “unlawful” , but it also considered that there is only one and the same “occupied Palestinian territory” , regardless of the different statuses that Israel may have imposed there since 1967. The reversal of perspective implied by the use, by the highest authority of international law, of the singular, instead of the usual plural, is particularly significant in Gaza.
According to the ICJ, it is on the entirety of this occupied Palestinian territory that the right of the Palestinian people to self-determination must be exercised. Such a right is and remains imprescriptible, because neither Israel's multiple faits accomplis, starting with the annexation of East Jerusalem and the colonization of the West Bank, nor the exceptional duration of this occupation, can alter it. The ICJ adds that "Israel's security concerns cannot prevail over the prohibition of the principle of the acquisition of territory by force" , a cardinal principle of international law.
Gaza, an integral part of the Occupied Palestinian Territory, remained largely under Israel's "effective control" even after the 2005 withdrawal, as the Jewish state "continued to exercise certain essential prerogatives over the Gaza Strip, including border control" and "military control of the buffer zone ." The ICJ specifies that "this is even more true since 7 October 2023 ," with the direct reoccupation of a quarter of the surface area of the Palestinian enclave, subject as a whole to Israeli strikes and restrictions.
The ICJ therefore solemnly recalls that Israel is under an obligation, in Gaza as in the rest of the occupied Palestinian territory, to apply the Geneva Conventions of 1949 on the law of war, and in particular the fourth of these conventions on the protection of civilians in time of war. This convention defines "the powers and duties" of the "occupying power" , which is "required to administer the territory in the interest of the local population" . But the ICJ also recalls that "all States are under an obligation not to recognize" the "unlawful presence of the State of Israel in the occupied Palestinian territory" and not to "lend it aid or assistance" in this regard.
A month later, Israel has still not sent an official response to the ICJ, with Benjamin Netanyahu simply describing such an opinion as " absurd."
Even if the International Court of Justice does not have the means to enforce its decisions, it remains that this case contributes to ostracizing the Zionist colonial state, which can only be useful for the liberation of Palestine. The international balance of power and the numerous demonstrations of support for the Palestinian cause are not for nothing.
"Negotiations" under US control
The usual circus around the so-called negotiations for a ceasefire in Gaza has resumed. The situation is clear. Biden came up with a three-point plan a month ago, the third of which consists in particular of the total evacuation of the Gaza Strip by the occupation army. On behalf of the resistance organizations, Hamas accepted this plan. But Netanyahu and his friends do not want it and are trying to gain time by participating in so-called negotiations with Egypt, Qatar and especially the USA.
This deception of " negotiations " continues. US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken has visited Jerusalem. The pre-election situation in the US is forcing the Democrats in power to obtain some guarantees from Israel or to pretend to have obtained some, in order not to lose the entire part of their electorate that supports Palestine. In this difficult exercise, the best is to make empty announcements.
This is what Blinken has just done. He announced that Netanyahu had accepted the peace plan, but without detailing its content. Not only has no official Zionist statement come to corroborate this announcement, but no one knows what is in this so-called peace plan. And Blinken asked Hamas to approve it. This is yet another attempt to make people believe that it is the Palestinian Resistance that refuses the agreement, when everyone has known for months that it is the Zionist state that does not want it.
Netanyahu does not want it, because his project is to finish the work left unfinished by Ben Gurion in 1948. The goal of the Zionist leaders is to destroy the Gaza Strip, by razing all its infrastructure, destroying schools and hospitals, killing journalists, UNRWA personnel and humanitarian workers, in order to permanently drive the surviving Palestinians from their territory. In this work, he couldn't care less about the fate of the captives.
In conclusion
We continue and will continue, tirelessly, to demand an immediate and permanent ceasefire, as well as free access for humanitarians throughout the Gaza Strip, and the complete withdrawal of the occupying forces from the enclave. But this will not be enough.
A just peace means the dismantling of the colonies, the return of the refugees and an independent Palestinian state. What prevents such a peace is the existence of a colonial state. The workers of Israel cannot be free if they do not break with Zionism, if they continue to find themselves objectively in the camp of the colonizers. Solidarity with Palestine cannot be satisfied with general phrases about peace. We need a state where all inhabitants enjoy the same rights and can live together, regardless of their origin, in this case, a democratic Palestinian state. Similarly, the national liberation struggle of the Palestinian people does not need compassion, but real political support and actions of internationalist solidarity. And for France, where the Revolutionaries, as elsewhere, must first fight their capitalists, this begins with the political struggle against the support of French imperialism for the Zionist colonial state.
This is why the Revolutionary Communist Party intends to continue to bring together all those who want an immediate ceasefire to end the massacre of Palestinians and who speak out for peace. For us, this means supporting the fundamental demands of the Palestinian national liberation movement, especially after the assassination of one of its leaders: an immediate end to Zionist military aggression, the right of return for refugees and the formation of a Palestinian state on the territory of Mandatory Palestine.