The Arab league delegation to Gaza to investigate the IDF war crimes

This week the first Arab league investigation delegation went to Gaza to investigate the IDF war crimes against the Palestinian citizens. I was so happy when I read the news making the headlines whether in the Arab world or Israel despite there was not much comment about it. The delegation will document those crimes in order to escalate the matter in front of the ICC.

This is the first delegation with such mission to be sent from the Arab League as far as I remember, this is so promising for sure. I read before that the Arab league was going to sent an investigation delegation to Gaza but to be honest I did not believe that they were serious.

I hope that they continue to be serious and try to push this matter to the ICC

Stop using the word “terrorism”

I am tired of the hypocrisy of the IDF , whenever anyone brings up their war crimes against humanity ,it starts speaking about terrorism with all it different kinds including the legal terrorism !!

I am not surprised that Liron Liebman ,the head of IDF’s military prosecution’s international law department to defend his army but I am afraid is that his focus only was about the IAF pilots who threw WP on civilian and UN targets.

The IAF was not the only force that committed war crimes in the Gaza that should be punished for , the IDF was involved.

Also regarding the mistakes as he liked to call it

"It’s impossible not to make mistakes in such a crowded environment, under pressure. There’s a large gap between mistakes and the ‘war crimes’ people like to accuse us of."

I do not think that such a crime of targeting babies directly could be a mistake , this is not a mistake at all , this is a war crime.

I do not think that shooting Samar and her sisters directly was a mistake, it was a war crime according to the international laws.

This is not terrorism, this is justice. If following the war criminals in the IDF is a legal terrorism why then the Israelis follow the Nazis up till this day even after this death is considered justice !!??

Jordan won’t sue Israel in front of the ICC

The Jordanian Parliament did not go to the ICC to sue Israel for the war crimes done in Gaza as it was announced.The parliament decided to delay the visit of the head of legal committee in the parliament to the ICC to unknown date.

The Jordanian MP Mubarak Abu Yamin ,the head of the legal committee was going to meet Ocampo on Wednesday in the Hague  to present a memo by the name of the Jordanian Parliament to sue the IDF war criminals.

But suddenly the visit was delayed or rather cancelled for the some unknown reasons. Mr. Abu Yamin said that there were only procedural problems where as many MPs said that there were pressures from outside the Parliament to cancel this visit.

Some unnamed source said to Al Jazeera.net that Jordan could not handle the implications of such move , it would open the door of hell on the small country that already is having bad relations with Israel on the unofficial level that reflected by its turn on the official level.

I think this is right but if all the Arab countries parliaments stand with the Jordanian Parliament in its daring great move, there will be no danger on Jordan.

Already I do not know why the Egyptian and Jordanian parliament do not collaborate in this issue ,especially I remember the Egyptian parliament intended to do something similar , or were they bluffing ??

Gaza in 1967

It is another shocking story about the war crimes against our officers in 1967 , of course you know that after the 5th of June 1967 the commandership of the Egyptian army gave its orders to the army to withdraw from Sinai and from Gaza , I am not going to speak about this stupid decision from unqualified commandership but this just historical introduction.

Some of our misfortune officers and soldiers who did not have time to withdraw and were captured whether in the city or its borders were taken and gathered to form some kind of circle in some square at Gaza. They were burned alive.

The people of Gaza understood what was going against our officers and so some of them offered help to officers and soldiers to escape that living hell in 1967.

Many people ignore that the PLO or what was better known as "Shokairians" then in Gaza { tribute to Ahmed Shokair the founder of PLO} were also hunted down by the IDF. I can’t forget what Fouad Hagazi ,the famous former POW and novelist said once in the TV about the murder of 16 years Palestinian boy from PLO in front of the Egyptian POWs.

These photos from 1967 , it seems that the IDF gathered hundreds of Palestinians in the Jabalia camp to interrogate them. I do not have a doubt the questions were mainly about the Egyptian army , do not forget from 1948 Gaza sector was under the Egyptian control despite in 1956 Israel invaded it for couple of months.

The road to the ICC

ICC announced new rules to encourage somehow the war criminals to show up with their dignity  in the court !! They can return back to their countries during the trial ..etc. Of course this can happen in a perfect world.No war criminal will give up that easily
Already Amr Moussa , the general secretary of the Arab league is having talks with the ICC in order to sue the IDF for war crimes against the Palestinian People in Gaza as the evidence of war crimes was crystal clear. I respect Moussa’s quick and smart move but I wonder why he did not the same the thing with the Egyptian POWs case when he was a FM of Egypt or even in his current position with my all respect and support to the Palestinian cause ((according to sources like MP Hamden Sabahi he told him once that Egypt can’t sue Israel officially for war crimes against her POWs because the Jews will sue us for nationalization !! I do not think that it is powerful reason !!))
This is from the official side , unofficially some Arabic civil society and human rights organization will have a meeting today at San’a’ governorate in Yemen in order to form an alliance to sue the IDF war criminals abroad, again I wonder why our civil society organization did not think in this option before but it is a good step. But of course I do not want to be pessimistic already the civil society and human rights organizations in the Arab world are too weak .
On the other hand the Israeli government knows that its soldiers and officers can be sued from wars crimes and as their habit to break international laws and so it announced that it would protect any Israeli fighter accused of war crimes will be granted a state protection from prosecution over seas. Strangely Ehud Olmert who once said that he cried for the murder of the Palestinian children was the one who announced this statement.
Still the human rights organizations in Israel are giving hard time to the military establishment and also the radical Zionists. Yesh Din,an Israeli Human rights organization is calling the IDF to sack a military Rabbi who distributed religious books on the soldiers calling them to show no mercy to a cruel enemy .

The IDF war Crimes continue despite they could have been stoppped

The IDF war crimes continue in Gaza and the world is watching silently where as hundreds of innocent children ,women and children are being killed. They were killed by the IDF favorite weapons : The incendiary weapons !! It became an official fact that Israel is using White phosphorus after all it targeted the UNRWA buildings with it for three times !! Of course we do not need to mention the DIME and other unknown weapons used in this barbaric Nazi war

This is not the first time Israel used incendiary weapons against civilians or even against military to be accurate because I can’t forget the fact that the IDF and IAF mostly nobly poured napalm on our officers and soldiers in their attempt to withdraw from Sinai in the six days war. I can’t forget the fact that napalm was used against our citizens in the Suez Canal Cities on the morning of the 5th of June 1967 !!

In all of the Israeli wars with us prohibited weapons were used and the world acted as if we were less than animals with my all due respect.

May be the world for real listened to us then those children would not have !!  May be the world needed hard evidence , well below is hard evidence , I wonder what the civilized world will do to these violations of Geneva convention No.4

Please spread that slide show

I gathered all the photos day by day since the beginning of the land invasion of Gaza

I hope this time we will be able to do something , at least for those poor kids we must try to sue the war criminals of the IDF in front of the ICC ,We Can do it.

The POW Swap record between the Arabs and Israel “The Jewish Virtual library”

BBC Arabic published a very interesting report about the POWs Swap between the Arab and Israel since 1948. It comes as part of their coverage to the POWs Swap between Lebanon represented by Hezbollah and Israel from three week ago. Of course it is worth to say that the entire report is a complete translation to the Jewish Virtual library based on the IDF numbers and records and so it should not be trusted !!

The report which was translated by Shady El-Kashaf from Gaza traces back the most POWs Swap since the 1948 war,I will summarize it below till year 1967 because already I am having my doubts regarding some numbers concerning the Egyptian POWs , the report claims that the number of the Egyptian POWs were more than the Israeli POWs ,which is untrue according to my humble knowledge in 1973,also it did not mention the number of the Egyptian POWs that actually returned in 1967.

First of all you must know that several Arabic research centers say that Israel captured nearly 800,000 Palestinians and thousands of Arab civilians and soldiers POWs according to the official numbers since the beginning of the conflict where as the Arabic armies captured more than one thousand Israeli POWs not to mention the the Palestinian and Lebanese militias captured many Israelis whether dead or alive. As you can see with my all due respect ,on the contrary to the Israeli propaganda we lost more than they did according to the IDF numbers.

Second This is based on the official records , which means with Israel infamous record in human rights of Arab POWs you expect that there are thousands of Arab POWs who were killed and never found their ways to the records as numbers not even names.

Now the POW Swap started in 1948 between Egypt and Israel , then in 1968 for the first time Israel swapped its POWs with POWs from the PLO in the first recognition to this group and  the last one after 60 years in 2008 ironically was between Hezbollah representing Lebanon and Israel. 1948 then 1968 then 2008 , 8 is very special number far as I see.

Here is a history line to the POWs Swap:

  • Year 1948 :

After the war between the Arab armies and Israel , the Arabs captured a total of “885” Israeli POWs as follows : The Egyptian army “156” Israeli POWs , The Jordanian army “673” Israeli POWs , The Syrian army “48 Israeli POWs” and the Lebanese army “8 Israeli POWs where as the Israelis captured a total of “7116” Arab POWs !! They do not call it Nakba in the Arab world from nothing !! The Arab POWs were as follows: “5021” Palestinian POWs , “1098” Egyptian POWs, “57”Syrian POWs,”36″ Lebanese POWs,”28″ Saudi POWs, “25”Sudanese POWs,”24″ Yemeni POWs and “17” Jordanian POWs .

Israel swapped its POWs with each country alone. The first swap was with Egypt on 27/2/1949 in the famous Fallujah agreement then with Lebanon from 3/3/1949 till 4/4/1949 then the rest of the Arab countries involved. Syria was the last Arab country to swap POWs on the 21/9/1949

  • Year 1954 :

on 30/9/1954 Egypt captured 10 sailors from the ship “Bat Galim” in the Suez Canal,they were released according to the orders of the security council on 1/1/1955.

In December 1954 the Syrians captured 5 Israeli soldiers that were on a secret mission in the Golan heights, one of them “Uri Ilan ” committed suicide in his prison and his remains were sent back to Israel on the 14/1/1955. The other four were swapped for “41” Syrian POWs on 30/3/1956.

  • Year 1957 :

After the Suez War Egypt and Israel had POWs to be swapped.It started on the 21/1/1956 and ended on the 5/2/1956. Israel released “5000” Egyptian POWs for 4 Israeli POWs in the Egyptian Capture , of course there is no mention about the infamous massacre of Sharm El-Sheikh.

  • Year 1961

After the break of the Union ,on the 17/3/1961 the IDF Golani special forces made a military operation on the borders with Israel near Kibbutz “Ein Gev” where they captured two soldiers that were returned later.

  • Year 1963

Another swap operation between Syria and Israel on the 21/12/1963 , Syria released 13 Israeli POWs for 15 Syrian POWs

  • Year 1967

The mother of POWs problems and scandals not to mention defeats

The Arab armies and countries  involved in the war that time Egypt,Syria,Jordan,Lebanon and Iraq managed to capture only 15 Israeli POWs.

Egypt captured 11 Israeli POWs among them 6 Israeli marine commandos who were captured during a fiasco attack on the harbor of Alexandria , it is not our topic here but the one who caught them was actually a kid , it was a terrible operation by all means.

Then there were two pilots from the IAF and the rest were members in a spy ring.

Iraq captured two pilots who were targeting the airport H in west of Iraq ,those two were swapped for 428 Jordanian POWs !!

Syria Captured only one !!

Lebanon Captured only one !!

The IDF captured on other hand a total of 6708 Arab military and civilian , no order they killed our POWs when they thought that they were too much !!

The IDF captured civilians and military members ; here are the numbers for each country :

  • Egypt: 4338 soldiers and 899 civilians. “different from what is mentioned here
  • Jordan : 533 soldiers and 336 civilians.
  • Syria : 367 soldiers and 206 civilians.

The swap started on 15/6/1967 through the red cross and the UN and ended on the 23/1/1968.Jordan and Iraq were the first countries and Egypt was the last one.

Iraq swapped two Israeli IAF pilots Capt. Itzhak Glantz-Golan and Capt. Gideon Dror who attacked the H3 Air basese in West of Iraq for 428 Joranian POWs.

Syria swapped a pilot and 3 dead bodies for 572 Syrian POWs.

It is worth to mention that they only mentioned the number of the Israeli side captured from Egypt but they did not mention how many were exchanged for the Israeli POWs , the 11 POWs including the some member of Lavon terrorist espionage ring

  • Year 1968 :

Jordan on the 2/4/1968 Israel swapped 12 Jordanian POWs for a body of missing solider from the Karameh battle

Again I will stop here because the content of the blog here is concentrating on the 1956 and 1967 ,you can find the rest of the report in the link above