Quelles que soient les relations bilatérales, la sécurité d’Israël n’est pas négociable pour les États-Unis

Le président Obama et le Premier ministre Netanyahu, lors d’une rencontre à Washington le 1er septembre 2010. Jason Reed/Reuters

Décryptage

La coopération entre les deux pays renforcée par un accord militaire historique.

Amaury DESHAIES | OLJ

11/10/2016

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Un nouveau record : 38 milliards de dollars entre 2019 et 2028. Tel est le montant de l'aide militaire dont bénéficiera Israël suite à l'accord signé le 14 septembre dernier avec les États-Unis. Le président américain Barack Obama a salué le « plus grand accord d'aide militaire bilatérale dans l'histoire des États-Unis » via un communiqué de la Maison-Blanche. À court terme, l'État hébreu profitera de ces milliards de dollars pour moderniser son aviation militaire, comme l'a fait savoir le Premier ministre Benjamin Netanyahu le 4 juillet dernier. La modernisation du « Dôme de fer », le système antimissile israélien, devrait également être à l'ordre du jour.

Cet accord et son ampleur restent pourtant surprenants après les deux mandats d'Obama durant lesquels les relations israélo-américaines furent particulièrement mauvaises. Malgré les efforts de l'administration Obama en faveur d'une solution à deux États, le processus de paix israélo-palestinien se trouve toujours dans l'impasse. Déjà en 2013, un haut responsable de l'administration américaine reprochait en privé au dirigeant israélien sa « lâcheté » face au défi politique que représente la résolution de ce conflit historique. M. Netanyahu ne s'était pas démonté et avait maintenu sa politique de colonisation en Cisjordanie, malgré les condamnations officielles américaines. Sur la question iranienne, il avait en outre, le 1er mars 2015 lors d'une visite à Washington, critiqué officiellement le processus de négociation qui allait aboutir, le 14 juillet, à un accord sur le nucléaire.

(Pour mémoire : Hillary Clinton promet de préserver "l'avantage militaire" d'Israël)

Un accord qui dépasse les clivages partisans
Pourtant, quelles que soient les relations bilatérales, la sécurité d'Israël n'a jamais été négociable pour Washington. C'est à la fois le fruit de décennies de coopération entre les deux États, mais aussi le résultat du soutien de groupes d'intérêts favorables à Israël aux États-Unis qui militent dans ce sens. Au premier rang desquels le lobby Aipac, qui s'assure de la continuité du soutien de Washington à Israël. Sébastien Boussois, docteur en science politique et auteur d'Israël entre 4 murs, rappelle en effet que « quelles que soient les affinités, il existe un soutien indéfectible des États-Unis envers Israël ».

L'instabilité régionale ne fait d'ailleurs que « renforcer pour l'État hébreu le besoin permanent de se sursécuriser », poursuit-il, interrogé par L'Orient-Le Jour. À ce titre, à la suite de l'accord sur le nucléaire, le chef d'état-major israélien, Gadi Eisenkot, s'inquiétait « de la volonté hégémonique de l'Iran sur la région, notamment à travers son soutien au Hezbollah au Liban et au Hamas à Gaza ». Israël avait donc tout intérêt à parvenir à un accord avant 2018, date à laquelle se termine l'actuel contrat de 30 milliards de coopération bilatérale signé en 2007.

(Lire aussi : Les logiciels espions, une spécialité israélienne)

Politiques parallèles
Barah Mikail, directeur de Stractegia Consulting et professeur associé à l'université Saint Louis, estime, lui aussi, qu'« il n'existe pas de corrélation automatique entre la nature des relations militaires américano-israéliennes et le soutien américain à une résolution du conflit israélo-palestinien ». En effet, les États-Unis n'investissent pas moins dans la sécurité d'Israël même quand ils favorisent le processus de paix. En son temps, Bill Clinton avait aussi bien assuré la coopération militaire bilatérale entre l'État hébreu et les États-Unis, qu'encouragé le processus de paix avec la signature des accords d'Oslo en 1994. La ligne politique du président Obama sur le sujet s'inscrit dans cette logique et le nouvel accord avait donc de fortes chances d'aboutir avant l'élection présidentielle de novembre.

Soutenir l'industrie militaire US
Enfin, avec cet accord, les Américains n'ont pas laissé passer l'occasion de soutenir leur l'industrie de défense pour la prochaine décennie. Cela aussi, passe outre les couleurs politiques des présidents américains. L'accord stipule notamment qu'à partir de la sixième année, les Israéliens ne pourront plus utiliser l'argent américain pour passer commande à leur propre industrie de défense. C'est actuellement le cas pour plus de 20 % des 3,1 milliards que l'État hébreu reçoit annuellement dans le cadre de l'accord actuel. In fine, l'exécutif américain aura réussi à financer de manière indirecte son complexe militaro-industriel.

http://www.lorientlejour.com/article/1011973/quelles-que-soient-les-relations-bilaterales-la-securite-disrael-nest-pas-negociable-pour-les-etats-unis.html

Issue No.1314, 6 October, 2016 04-10-2016 08:50AM ET

Shimon Peres: Brand without substance

Peres was vaunted as Israel’s peacemaker. But the reality is that he authored a litany of war crimes and armed Israel with nuclear weapons, writes Ramzy Baroud

Former Israeli prime minister and president Shimon Peres was a very successful brand. He was presented to the world as stately, wise, a relentless advocate of peace, and a sane voice amidst a conflict deemed senseless and unending.

Now that he is dead, at 93, international media is rife with touching tributes and heart-warming eulogies of the Nobel Peace Prize winner, one of Israel’s most sagacious founding fathers, who was also seen as a giant among men.

These attributes were mostly based on sentiment rather than fact, however. Full knowledge of the man’s legacy certainly lingers among many Palestinians, Lebanese and advocates of peace and justice in the Middle East.

The truth is, Peres was never truly a peacemaker; he never laboured to achieve fair and just political compromises that would preserve the dignity and rights of the Palestinians, along with securing the future of his people. In fact, he was a maximalist, a man who blatantly shoved his ideas forward in order to achieve his goals, no matter what the method or price.

Nor was he a leader with specific qualities that allowed him to excel in particular fields of politics. Instead, he was the embodiment of the archetypical Israeli politician who swapped roles and rebranded himself as the occasion or role required.

“Over seven decades, Peres served as prime minister (twice) and president, though he never actually won a national election outright,” wrote Ben White in Middle East Monitor. “He was a member of 12 cabinets and had stints as defence, foreign and finance minister.”

He was also characterised as a warrior at home, and a peace dove in global forums. He came across as kind and stately, and Western media often embraced that erroneous image with little questioning.

But for many, Shimon Peres was a false prophet. Like Ehud Barak, Tzipi Livni, Ehud Olmert and others, he was a peacemaker in name only, and only by those whose ideals he fulfilled.

Fearing to appear too soft to lead Israel (which is often led by battle-hardened generals), Peres often meted out severe punishment on the Palestinian and Lebanese peoples. His history was rife with brutal war crimes that went unpunished.

Although he is remembered for his ordering of the bombing of a UN shelter in the Lebanese village of Qana in 1996, killing and wounding hundreds of innocent people, the list of war crimes associated with his name is as long as his career. He remained, until the very end, a staunch supporter of the Israeli right-wing government’s wars on Gaza and the perpetual siege on that impoverished, forsaken region.

Even as a peacemaker he failed terribly. He championed the Oslo Accords as a political treaty that would entrench the Israeli occupation and turn the little that remained of historic Palestine into disjointed Bantustans, as was the case, if not to a worse extent, in apartheid South Africa. Yet he certainly never took responsibility, or expressed any remorse, for the resultant plight of the Palestinians.

Nevertheless, the brand of Shimon Peres is an old one. It spans over the course of his long career, starting with him joining underground Zionist militias prior to the establishment of Israel on appropriated Palestinian land. His militant group, the Haganah, was entrusted with the implementation of Plan Dalet, which essentially aimed at the ethnic cleaning of the Palestinian population of its historic homeland.

As one of the disciples of David Ben-Gurion, the first prime minister of Israel, “Peres spent his long political career in the public spotlight”, although “his greatest successes were engineered in the shadows,” according to Yaron Ezrahi, a politics professor at Hebrew University in Jerusalem, as quoted by Jonathan Cook.

One of these successes was the nuclear bomb. Although various Middle Eastern countries, most notably Iraq and Iran, are often derided for nuclear weapons they have never possessed, Peres was the founding father of weapons of mass destruction in the region.

“Peres, like his mentor, believed an Israeli bomb was the key to guaranteeing Israel’s status — both in Washington DC and among the Arab states — as an unassailable Middle East power,” Cook wrote.

Dodging American protests, Peres enlisted the clandestine support of Britain, France, Norway and other countries to realise his ambition.

Yet throughout his career, Peres never ceased speaking of peace. His rhetoric and rehearsed face of sincerity suited even his political rivals very well, for the juxtaposition of peace-loving Peres versus, for example, warmongering Ariel Sharon presented Israel as a country with healthy, democratic institutions.

The true mockery, though, is that the differences between Peres and his rivals, who also included former Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Shamir, were barely even apparent and only relevant within Israel’s own political and historical contexts.

For example, Shamir, who led the government between 1983-84 and, again between 1986-1992, was a member of the terrorist Zionist paramilitary group, Lehi, also known as the Stern Gang, at the time when Peres was a member of the Haganah. Throughout their militant and political careers, both collaborated in ethnic cleaning, waged wars, expanded illegal Jewish colonies, and entrenched the military occupation of Palestinian land after 1967.

However, stately Peres chose his words carefully and was indeed a cunning diplomat, while Shamir was a blunt and disagreeable character. As far as practical differences are concerned, however, the end results of their policies were practically identical.

A particularly poignant example was the unity government in Israel in 1984 that had a most peculiar leadership arrangement that included both Shamir of the rightwing Likud Party and Peres of the Labour Party, who was at the time in the early phase of his reinvention as a dove. (Yitzhak Rabin was appointed to the post of defence minister.)

These two individuals who stood at the helm of the Israeli leadership constituted the worst possible combination from the point of view of Palestinians in the occupied territories. While Shamir and Peres served the role of the hard-liner and peace-seeker respectively before the international community, both men and their governments presided over a legacy saturated with violence, illegal annexation of Palestinian land and settlement expansion.

The number of Jewish settlers who moved to the occupied territories between 1984 and 1988 rose considerably, contributing to a policy of slow annexation of Palestinian land and, predictably, the ethnic cleansing of more people.

In October 1994, Peres, along with Yasser Arafat and Yitzhak Rabin, was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. While Rabin was assassinated by a Jewish extremist and Arafat died from suspected poisoning, Peres lived to be 93, advocating Israel’s interest at the expense of Palestinians to the very end, as well as justifying Israeli wars, sieges and military occupation.

The Israelis and many in the mainstream Western media may very well praise Peres as a hero, but for Palestinians, Lebanese and a multitude of others he is just another war criminal who escaped accountability for his countless misdeeds.

The writer is founder of PalestineChronicle.com.

http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/News/17480/19/Shimon-Peres--Brand-without-substance.aspx

Administrative detainees forced to risk lives for freedom

Published:

Malek al-Qadi on the day of his release from administrative detention. Photo by Faiz Abu-Rmeleh, ActiveStills, 24 September 2016.

In July 2016, three Palestinians went on a hunger strike to protest their administrative detention by Israel. About three months after that, on 21 September 2016, the media reported that they had agreed to end their strike after the Israeli authorities promised not to extend their administrative detention orders and to release them at the end of their current detention period. Two of the detainees are brothers Muhammad Balbul, 25, whose hunger strike began on 7 July 2016 and lasted 77 days, and Mahmoud Balbul, 23, whose strike began on 5 July 2016 and lasted 79 days. The two are expected to be released from detention on 8 December 2016. A third detainee, Malek al-Qadi, whose hunger strike began on 16 July 2016 and lasted 68 days, was released from administrative detention on 22 September 2016. Al-Qadi’s heath deteriorated during his hunger strike and he fell into a coma for eight days.

Sana Balbul, 42, mother of Mahmoud and Muhammad, spoke to B’Tselem field-researcher Musa Abu Hashhash on 9 September 2016 about her sons’ choice to go on a hunger strike:

Muhammad studied dentistry in Egypt and came back two years ago. He opened a private practice in Bethlehem and within a year became a very successful and busy doctor. Mahmoud is an officer in the Palestinian Authority military academy. He was planning to study for a master’s degree.

On 7 June 2016, we woke up early from the sound of soldiers forcing the door open. They arrested Muhammad and Mahmoud. I later found out that they’d been taken to administrative detention at Ofer Prison. On the first, and only, time I visited them in prison, Mahmoud hinted to me that they were going to go on a hunger strike. He said most detainees go on a hunger strike after their detention orders are extended, but that they weren’t going to wait for the day they stand at the prison gate hoping to go home, and then a smiling prison guard turns up and tells them their detention has been extended for six more months.

While reaching agreements with these individual detainees, Israel continues to hold scores of other Palestinians in administrative detention and to detain more. According to figures provided to B’Tselem by the Israel Prison Service (IPS) on 14 September 2016, which were updated until 31 July 2016, 643 Palestinians were being held in administrative detention in Israeli prisons, including two women and nine minors aged 16 to 18. They have been held under administrative detention for various periods of time and do not know when they are going to be released.

Palestinians held by Israel in administrative detention on 31 July 2016, by length of detention

* According to IPS figures, 645 Palestinian administrative detainees were held in IPS facilities as of 31 July 2016. Details indicate that at least 643 of them were residents of the OPT.

One of these detainees is Thaer Halahleh, 37, from the village of Kharas. He has been held in administrative detention since August 2014. Last July, his detention was extended for the fifth time. His mother, Fatmeh Halahleh, 63, spoke about his arrest to B’Tselem field researcher Manal al-Ja'bri on 7 September 2016:

Thaer was arrested on 19 August 2014. This is the ninth time he’s been put under administrative detention. He was transferred to a prison in Beersheva. The first order was for six months, then it was renewed for six more months, and the same in the third extension. In the fourth extension, they decided it would be for four months. On 15 June 2016, they renewed it again, for the fifth time, for four more months. I’m suffering a great deal from not knowing when he’ll be released. Every time I waited with anticipation and longing for his return home to his wife and two small boys, but every time, I was disappointed. Thaer didn’t come back and I spent the night crying, praying that this will be the last time his detention gets renewed.

I don’t know if he’ll come home on 14 October 2016, when his current detention ends. I’ve lost faith in the occupations’ dates and courts. I feel sorrow every time I see his young wife and small children, who go to bed alone in their house, missing their father. I try to support his wife and compensate his kids for his absence. I find myself lying to his young daughter who keeps asking about her father, telling her he’ll come back soon. His wife and kids have been living with her parents in Jordan for two months now, waiting for Thaer’s release. I feel sorrow and start crying every time I see Thaer’s home empty and locked up. The uncertainty about his return date is very painful for me. I wish he’d been put on trial and we’d know his release date while I’m still alive.

Since October 2015, Israel has stepped up use of administrative detention. This is detention without a time limit, by virtue of an administrative order only – without trial and without a conviction – based on “evidence” that is not disclosed to the detainees, which means they cannot defend themselves against it. In theory, the judges who perform judicial review over the detention orders could serve as the detainees’ representatives, demand clarifications from the ISA, and even share at least some of the material in the file with the detainees. In practice, they elect not to do so, and in the vast majority of cases approve the detention (though, sometimes, for shorter periods), making judicial review mostly a formality.

In this state of affairs, the only course of action left for administrative detainees to get back their freedom, challenge the injustice of their detention, and prevent its repeated renewal, is to severely harm their own bodies with hunger strikes that could cause substantive, irreparable damage to their health and, in some cases, endanger their lives.

The Israeli authorities refuse to address the hunger strikers’ arguments regarding the inherent injustice of administrative detention. Instead, they reach individual agreements with hunger strikers when their health deteriorates to the point where their lives are at risk. The Supreme Court of Israel has also avoided discussing the issue. It has refused to order the release of administrative detainees who were at death’s door, and instead, invented the concept of “suspended detention”, which, in their view, released them from the duty to rule on the issue of principle.

Israel must stop using administrative detention immediately. This measure has never been lawful, but Israel’s insistence, in recent months, on keeping hospitalized hunger strikers who are nearing death in administrative detention – with the Supreme Court’s seal of approval – clearly unmasks the baseless claim that administrative detention is meant to prevent a threat posed by the detainee.

http://www.btselem.org/administrative_detention/20161006_administrative_detainees

Les manuels scolaires et la littérature enfantine israéliens promeuvent le racisme et la haine contre les Palestiniens et les Arabes

par Maureen Mehan*

Suivant de récentes études académiques et des sondages d'opinion, les manuels scolaires, aussi bien que les livres de fiction enfantins israéliens, décrivent les Palestiniens et les Arabes comme des « assassins», des « émeutiers» et des gens « généralement arriérés» et « improductifs. » La délégitimisation et les stéréotypes négatifs des Palestiniens et des Arabes sont la règle plutôt que l'exception dans les manuels scolaires israéliens.
La haine et le mépris des Palestiniens et des Arabes comme fondement des Programmes scolaires israéliens Le Professeur Daniel Bar-Tal de l'université de Tel Aviv a étudié 124 manuels destinés aux écoles primaires, aux collèges d'enseignement moyen, et aux lycées israéliens, et portant sur la langue et la littérature hébraïques, l'histoire, la géographie et l'éducation civique.

Bar-Tal a conclu que les manuels scolaires israéliens présentent le point de vue selon lequel les juifs sont engagés dans une guerre justifiée, et même humanitaire, contre un ennemi arabe qui refuse d'accepter et de reconnaître l'existence et les droits des juifs en Israël.
Selon ce professeur : « Les premiers manuels scolaires avaient tendance à décrire les Arabes comme des gens hostiles, déviants, injustes, cruels, immoraux ayant l'intention de nuire aux juifs et d'annihiler l'état d'Israël. Dans ce cadre de référence, les Arabes étaient déligitimisés par l'utilisation d'étiquettes comme : des voleurs», des «assoiffés de sang», et des «tueurs», A ces observations, Bar-Tal a ajouté qu'il y a eu peu de révisions positives dans les programmes israéliens au cours des années.
Il a souligné que les manuels israéliens continuent de présenter les juifs comme : industrieux, braves et déterminés à prendre en charge les difficultés et à « améliorer le pays par tous les moyens alors que les Arabes en sont incapables…

Ce message, continue Bar-Tal, a été accentué encore plus par l'usage de stéréotypes clairs et nets qui décrivent les Arabes comme « non éclairés, inférieurs, fatalistes, improductifs et apathiques. » De plus, suivant ces manuels, les Arabes étaient «tribalistes, revanchards, exotiques, pauvres, malades, sales, bruyants, colorés» et «ils brûlent, tuent, assassinent, détruisent et sont facilement incités à la colère.»
Les livres pour enfants israéliens délibérément rédigés pour instiller la déshumanisation des Arabes et des Palestiniens
Dans un livre, intitulé : «Un visage horrible dans le miroir» son auteur, l'écrivain et chercheur israélien Adir Cohen étudie la nature de l'éducation des enfants en Israël, et se concentre sur la façon dont l'élite des historiens israéliens voit et décrit les Arabes palestiniens et aussi comment les enfants juifs israéliens perçoivent les Palestiniens. Une partie du livre était basée sur les résultats d'un sondage pris parmi un groupe d'enfants de la 3ème année primaire à la 1re année de l'enseignement moyen dans une école de Haïfa.

Cinq questions furent posées à ces élèves sur leur attitude à l'égard des Arabes, comment les reconnaissaient-ils et quelles étaient leurs relations avec eux.

Les résultats de ce sondage furent aussi choquants que bouleversants.75% des enfants ont décrit l'Arabe comme un assassin, quelqu'un qui enlève les enfants, un criminel et un terroriste. 80% ont disent qu'ils voient l'Arabe comme quelqu'un de sale, avec un visage terrifiant. 90% des élèves ont déclaré qu'ils croient que les Palestiniens n'ont aucun droit de quelque nature qui soit sur la terre d'Israêl ou la Palestine.
Cohen a aussi étudié 1.700 livres pour enfants publiés après 1967. Il a découvert que 520 de ces livres contenaient des descriptions négatives et humiliantes des Palestiniens. Il a pris la peine de faire la distinction par classe de descriptions.
70% des 520 livres pour enfants font référence aux Arabes comme violents, 52% comme méchants, 37% comme menteurs, 31% comme cupides, 28% comme double-faces, 27 % comme traîtres. Cohen a souligné que les auteurs de ces livres d'enfants instillent effectivement la haine envers les Arabes en les déshumanisant et en les classant dans une autre catégorie que les êtres humains.

Dans un échantillon de 86 livres, Cohen a compté les descriptions suivantes utilisées pour déshumaniser les Arabes : meurtriers a été utilisé 21 fois, serpents 6 fois, sales 6 fois, animaux vicieux 17 fois, assoiffés de sang 21 fois, va-t-en guerre 17 fois, tueurs 13 fois, crédules 9 fois, dos de chameau 2 fois.

L'étude de Cohen conclut que ces descriptions des Arabes sont partie intégrale des convictions et d'une culture rampante dans la littérature et les livres d'histoires hébreux. Il écrit que les auteurs et écrivains israélien ont confessé qu'ils décrivent délibérément les caractères arabes de cette façon, en particulier en direction des lecteurs les plus jeunes pour influer sur leur vision du monde et pour les préparer à traiter les Arabes « comme il se doit. »

*Journaliste libre qui couvre la Rive occidentale et Jérusalem (paru sur ‘Washington Report on Middle East Affairs'. Traduit par Mourad Benachenhou

http://www.lequotidien-oran.com/?news=5233779

Soldier kills Palestinian teen who posed no threat by firing flare bomb at him across Israel-Gaza fence

Published:

On 9 September 2016, at 7:10 PM, a soldier fired a flare bomb from very short range at 15-year-old Palestinian ‘Abd a-Rahman a-Dabagh during a protest held near the Gaza perimeter fence, east of al-Bureij Refugee Camp. A-Dabagh, a resident of the camp, was killed. The flare bomb hit a-Dabagh above the eye, fractured his skull and remained lodged it in. It stuck to his face and kept burning for a while. Video footage filmed by another protestor and obtained by B’Tselem captured the moments just after the flare was fired, and shows a-Dabagh lying on the ground, with the burning flare up against his face. In a media statement, the military said the troops who were at the scene were not responsible for the incident.

B’Tselem’s investigation found that, as occurs every Friday afternoon, some one hundred youths and children staged a protest near the Gaza perimeter fence east of al-Bureij RC. On the other side of the fence, within Israeli territory, there were about four military jeeps and at least ten soldiers, some of them standing by the jeeps and some on dirt mounds behind the jeeps, toward east. Some of the protestors threw stones at the soldiers. A-Dabagh was among them, using a sling shot. According to eyewitnesses, the soldiers fired live shots in the air and at the protestors’ legs, and also launched tear gas canisters, stun grenades and flare bombs at them.

At around 3:00 PM, a-Dabagh approached the barbed wire fence located about ten meters west of the perimeter fence, together with some ten other protestors. They cut the barbed wire, crossed it, and approached the perimeter fence. The youths got up to a distance several meters away from the soldiers and then went back and forth several times. According to the protestors, the soldiers shot tear gas canisters and flares at them.

The stone-throwing and the shooting at the protestors continued until evening. Shortly after 7:00 PM, after a-Dabagh had retreated 10 to 15 meters away from the fence, one of the soldiers shot a 40-mm flare bomb directly at him, using a launcher. A.D., 31, from Deir al-Balah RC, described what he saw to B’Tselem field researcher Khaled al-'Azayzeh:

The soldiers fired two flare bombs directly at us. The bombs hit the fence and started a fire. Shortly after 7:00 PM, a soldier took a few steps and came up to the fence, put the barrel of his rifle through it and fired a flare bomb straight at ‘Abd a-Rahman. The bomb hit his head. He immediately fell to the ground and his face kept on burning.

I came up to him quickly, but one of the soldiers told me in Arabic: “Get back or I’ll shoot you”. I told him I just wanted to lift him up. I took two steps toward ‘Abd a-Rahman, and the soldier shot a few bullets at my legs. I stopped. Then, the soldier turned on his gun’s laser sight and put it on me. Once the fire on ‘Abd a-Rahman’s face went out, the soldiers let us go to him. His face was burnt and he was bleeding. He was unconscious and didn’t move. I yelled, asking for help from the guys, and they came and lifted him up.

H.H., 25, a resident of al-Bureij RC who was at the demonstration, told B’Tselem field researcher Khaled al-'Azayzeh:

‘Abd a-Rahman raised his hands above his head, making a V sign, and took a few steps back. Then, one of the soldiers came forward and shot at him, and ‘Abd a-Rahman retreated. I heard the sound of the grenade that had been shot at us exploding. I saw ‘Abd a-Rahman, who had fallen to the ground, with his face on fire. I tried to get close to him to give him first aid, but one of the soldiers told me to stay back. He pointed his gun at me and fired a bullet next to me. I stayed standing there, yelling to the guys to come help me take care of him. He stayed lying on the ground until the fire on his face went out. I asked the soldiers, with my hands up, to let me and another guy to go over. We walked a few meters until we got to him.

After the fire went out, the soldiers allowed protestors to walk over to a-Dabagh, and a few of them went up to him and carried him to a Red Crescent ambulance parked about 300 meters away from the perimeter fence. From there, a-Dabagh was taken to Shuhada al-Aqsa hospital in Deir al-Balah.

The post-mortem examination carried out at the hospital revealed a-Dabagh had been hit on the left side of the head, above the left eye. The flare bomb caused a fracture in the left side of the skull, a fissure and hemorrhaging on the left side of the brain and external burns in the area of the injury. A-Dabagh’s death certificate specifically noted that the injury that caused his death resulted from a flare bomb hitting his head.

B’Tselem’s investigation found that the soldier fired the flare at a-Dabagh at a time when he posed no threat to the soldiers, who were standing on the other side of the perimeter fence, well protected. This is the 20th casualty in Gaza since demonstrations near the perimeter fence began in October 2015.

Flares are not a crowd control measure. Their function is to illuminate dark areas or send a message to other units. They may only be fired in the air aimed high, so they can illuminate the area. They certainly may not be fired directly at protestors.

In the past, B’Tselem would have contacted the authorities in such a case and demanded an investigation and measures against those responsible for a-Dabagh’s death. However, several months ago B’Tselem announced it would no longer refer complaints to the military law enforcement system, which functions mainly as a whitewash mechanism, rather than as a means of uncovering the truth or seeing justice done. Our decision naturally has no bearing on the authorities’ duty to carry out their task and investigate everyone responsible for this incident. However, even if an investigation does take place, experience shows the chances of it leading to any substantive results are extremely low.

http://www.btselem.org/gaza_strip/20160929_killing_of_abd_a_rahman_a_dabagh