Breaking the silence around Gaza?
Breaking the Silence is one of the myriad groupings in Israeli civic society that offers a thread of hope in the current impasse in the Middle East.
I say civic because although it is made up of Israeli soldiers, they are all either conscripts or reservists.
Today they have published a report into Israel’s recent military operation in Gaza. describing what they call “fifty-four testimonies of Israeli combat soldiers who participated in Operation Cast Lead“.
The testimonies, which are attributed to anonymous soldiers, reportedly describe Israeli forces using civilians as human shields to enter buildings ahead of troops; the wanton destruction of homes and buildings; the vandalism of Palestinian property; soldiers firing at water tanks and puncturing them – despite the severe water shortage the motivation was mere boredom, the use of white phosphorous in civilian areas in a way some soldiers describe in the testimonies as “gratuitous” and “reckless”.
It seems from this report that many of the soldiers saw almost no direct engagement with Palestinian militants. The Israeli authorities dismissed the document as “hearsay and word-of-mouth”.
Coming on the heels of the UN’s report which described more than 50,000 homes damaged together with 800 factories, 200 schools, 39 mosques and 2 churches, this is further evidence of something beyond the norm as having taken place and that’s putting it lightly.
In the documentary which I made at the time “Gaza Unseen” on Channel 4, we described elements of what these soldiers are talking about but this is much worse than we knew.
Six months on, there is still very little mainstream coverage of what is happening in Gaza. The Middle East envoy representing the quarter (the UN, the EU, Russia and the United States), Tony Blair, has finally made his first visit to Gaza some weeks ago but to no obvious effect.
Indeed I have made a formal Freedom of Information request to try to find out just how many days Mr Blair has spent in the region per month since he got the job.
I’ll keep you posted on that but despite the high hopes centred on President Obama’s recent statements, it seems that in practical terms the festering sore of Gaza and significant parts of the West Bank remain largely unaddressed and no-one thus far has been taken to task for the worst of what happened in Gaza in January.