Palestina: Depoimentos sobre os crimes de guerra israelenses em Gaza
Blogueiros em Gaza não se surpreenderam com os depoimentos de soldados israelenses documentando crimes de guerra que cometeram ou testemunharam [en] durante os recentes ataques a Gaza – ou por quaisquer outras histórias, que agora estão sendo relatadas, a respeito da conduta militar israelense.
A ativista canadense Eva Bartlett bloga em In Gaza [en]:
What we knew of Israel’s war crimes during Israel’s war on Gaza, what the medics, the victims, the doctors, the witnesses have testified is now gaining growing recognition. The calls for international inquiry are growing, as are the reasons. […] The Guardian has just published an excellent series of articles and videos on Israel’s crimes of war in and on Gaza. Included in the reports are focuses on attacks on medical workers, Israel’s use of drones to target and kill with pinpoint accuracy civilians, and Israel’s use of civilians (including minors) as human shields during their military operations. […] People in Gaza were very acutely aware of the lethal drones, without having to be told thus by formal groups or experts. At new year’s the sordid text message about zanana (drone) missiles spread in a dark attempt at humour. We knew they were deadly.
Eva então disponibiliza links para outras fontes midiáticas, incluindo Al Jazeera [ar], Ha'aretz [en], The Independent [en], e The Times [en].
O ativista australiano Sharyn Lock escreve em Tales to Tell [en]:
Do you remember that before the ground incursion began, E and I were spending nights with our Jabalia friends as they hid in the basement while the bombs fell? And then we would go out in the morning (somewhat less bombs) to document the attacks. And you might remember a picture we took of a yellow truck in which a family had been blown up.
Well, what I didn’t know was that Israel was actually using footage of the last minutes of these people’s lives, taken from the air, as a youtube propaganda video about how they were just targeting Hamas rocket firers. However the locals told a B’Tselem field worker the same story they told us (the Guardian newspaper picked up on it also) and a very different version of events was posted to youtube here.
Bem, o que eu não sabia era que Israel estava, na verdade, usando as gravações dos últimos minutos das vidas dessas pessoas, filmados do alto, como se fosse um vídeo propaganda do youtube sobre como eles estavam mirando nos lançadores de mísseis do Hamas. Entretanto, os moradores locais contaram a um operário da B’Tselem [en] a mesma história que nos contaram (e que o jornal The Guardian também cobriu [en]) e é uma versão muito diferente dos eventos, que está publicada no youtube aqui [en].
Louisa Waugh, que trabalha em Gaza, escreve no Gaza Blog [en] do New Internationalist:
An American friend who has lived in Jerusalem for almost two years tells me she thinks Israel is unnerved by recent testimonies from soldiers who were recently in Gaza.
The Israeli soldiers were graduates of the Oranim College military academy, which has just published the testimonies. They describe attacks on civilians, including what one soldier described as ‘The cold-blooded murder’ of an elderly Palestinian woman, and incidents of soldiers being ordered to trash civilian houses and throw the contents, furniture and all, out of the windows. The academy director, Dany Zamir, told an Israeli radio station that, ‘[The testimonies] conveyed an atmosphere in which one feels entitled to use unrestricted force against Palestinians.’
Alongside these disturbing but unsurprising revelations which the Israeli military says it will investigate, is the ugly scandal of T-shirts with vicious slogans being worn by some young Israeli soldiers. According to reports in the Israeli media, and BBC news, one of the T-shirts has the slogan ‘Bet you got Raped!’ over a picture of a bruised woman in a head-scarf. Another shows the picture of a clearly pregnant head-scarved woman with the words, ‘One shot two kills.’ […] I think my friend in Jerusalem is overly optimistic: it's hard to get any perspective on Israel from here in Gaza, especially so soon after the devastating offensive. But mainstream Israeli public opinion seems to be that although the Israeli military offensive in Gaza was clearly brutal and disproportionate, Palestinians got what they deserved.
Os soldados israelitas se formaram na academia militar de Oranim College, que acaba de publicar os depoimentos. Eles descrevem os ataques a civis, incluindo o que um soldado descreveu como ‘assassinato a sangue frio’ de uma mulher idosa palestina, e incidentes de soldados sendo ordenados para destruir casas de civis e jogar os pertences, móveis e tudo, pela janela. O diretor da academia, Dany Zamir, disse em uma rádio israelita que, ‘[os depoimentos] expressava uma atmosfera na qualquer um se sente obrigado a usar força irrestrita contra os palestinos.’
Junto destas perturbadoras, mas esperadas revelações as quais os militares israelitas disseram que vão investigar, está o feio escândalo das camisas com slogans violentos, sendo usadas por alguns jovens soldados de Israel. De acordo com relatórios da mídia israelita, e a BBC news [en], uma das camisas tem o slogan ‘Aposto que você foi estuprada!’ sobre a imagem de uma mulher machucada usando uma burca. Outra mostra uma foto clara de uma grávida com as palavras ‘um tiro, duas mortes’. […] Eu acho que minha amiga em Jerusalém está otimista além da conta: é difícil ter qualquer perspectiva em Israel aqui em Gaza, especialmente tão breve, com uma ofensiva devastadora. A principal opinião pública israelita, apesar da ofensiva militar de Israel em Gaza ter sido claramente brutal e desproporcional, parece ser de que os palestinos tiveram o que mereciam.
Mango Girl, radicada no Egito, refere-se a um relatório de um rabino que acompanhou soldados israelitas:
Dirty laundry from the recent military campaign against Gaza is being aired in Haaretz [newspaper], and one of the allegations is that a radical rabbi was brought in to exhort Israeli soldiers to do their religious duty in clearing the land of non-Jews so that Jews could realize their religious rights to it. Golly gee, do you think that maybe Israel is motivated by religion or religious identity? You mean they’re not super secular and liberal and democratic and are, just maybe, more similar to the unwashed wild-eyed jihadi Arabs they are fighting than different?
Terminamos com o pensamento da ativista libanesa Natalie Abou Shakra, que bloga em Moments of Gaza [en]; ela questiona sobre as imagens de aviões de guerra sobre as quais publicou [en]:
Don't they look like insects, the ones that bite deep into your skin? […] And, to humanity's dismay, when one searches on the internet, the search results display artistic photos of the war planes, as if they can be added to a collection… perhaps they would like to also take artistic photos of the aftermath of using these man-slaughtering machines looking at the Israeli Apache… does it not look like an abnormally large insect (an abnormally large fly)… do you understand what i mean now that we lived a horror movie…? there were huge insects and parasites feeding on human flesh
