[NYTr] Israel won't prosecute for use of cluster bombs in Lebanon

[All the News That Doesn't Fit]

Intl Herald Tribune - Dec 25, 2007
http://www.iht.com/bin/printfriendly.php?id=8887822


Israel won't prosecute for use of cluster bombs in Lebanon

By Isabel Kershner

JERUSALEM: Israeli military prosecutors announced Monday that they
would not press charges over the army's use of cluster bombs during the
war against Hezbollah guerrillas in Lebanon, actions that had been
widely criticized by human rights organizations.

The announcement came as Israeli and Palestinian negotiating teams met
here Monday evening for the second time since the American-sponsored
peace conference in Annapolis, Maryland.

Cluster bombs are not prohibited in warfare, but their use is
criticized because they contain "bomblets" that explode over a wide
area and may strike unintended targets. In addition, bomblets that fail
to explode become, in effect, land mines that can be detonated by
civilians long after fighting has stopped. More than 30 Lebanese are
said to have been killed by munitions left behind after the monthlong
war in 2006.

Soon after the fighting stopped, a top United Nations aid official, Jan
Egeland, described Israel's use of cluster bombs as "shocking" and
"completely immoral," not least, he said, because most had been fired
in the last 72 hours of the war, when it was clear that the conflict
was moving toward a resolution.

In November 2006, the Israeli Army's chief of staff, Lieutenant General
Dan Halutz, ordered an investigation into whether the bombs had been
fired according to his orders. He resigned in January amid widespread
domestic criticism over the way the war had been fought.

In a statement on Monday, the army said its chief investigator, Major
General Gershon Hacohen, had determined that the use of the cluster
bombs did not violate international law, and that "the majority of the
cluster munitions were fired at open and uninhabited areas, areas from
which Hezbollah forces operated and in which no civilians were present."

Hezbollah has also been accused of using cluster munitions among the
4,000 rockets it fired into Israel during the fighting.

In the meeting between the Israeli and Palestinian negotiating teams,
no progress was registered on substantial issues. But the two sides
agreed that Prime Minister Ehud Olmert of Israel and the Palestinian
president, Mahmoud Abbas, would meet later this week and that the teams
would also meet in early January, Israeli officials said, before
President George W. Bush arrives in the region on Jan. 8.

Both sides have pledged to fulfill their obligations under a 2003 peace
plan known as the road map, which calls on Israel to halt all
settlement activity, including natural growth, and on the Palestinians
to act to halt all violence against Israelis.

The Palestinians said before Monday's meeting that they intended to
focus on Israel's plans to continue building in Jewish settlements, in
areas that the Palestinians claim for their future state. After the
meeting, Saeb Erekat, a senior Palestinian negotiator, condemned the
settlement building and said that the Palestinians demanded a
construction freeze before talks toward a peace deal could start.

Aryeh Mekel, a spokesman for the Israeli Foreign Ministry, said that
the Palestinians had indeed raised the settlement issue and that
Israeli negotiators had raised the security issue.

Also Monday, a committee of Israeli ministers led by Vice Premier Haim
Ramon began examining the government's criteria for early release of
Palestinian prisoners, Israeli officials said.

Loosening those rules could facilitate the return of captured Israeli
soldiers who are believed to be held by the militant groups Hamas and
Hezbollah; it could also open up the possibility of larger prisoner
releases to bolster Abbas, the officials said, speaking anonymously
because the issue is still being debated.

The current government policy, set in July 2003, bars the release of
prisoners with "blood on their hands," defined as those who
participated in attacks in which Israeli or foreign nationals were
killed or wounded; their dispatchers; and would-be suicide bombers who
were captured before carrying out an attack. Rafi Eitan, a cabinet
minister, told Israel Radio on Monday that the current restrictions
made it nearly impossible to negotiate for the release of captured
soldiers.

Hamas is demanding that 450 Palestinian prisoners be let go in exchange
for an Israeli soldier, Corporal Gilad Shalit, who was seized in a
cross-border raid by Hamas and two other militant groups and taken to
Gaza in June 2006.

There have been contradictory reports from Hamas in recent days about
whether indirect contacts over Shalit, which had stopped after Hamas
gained control of Gaza over the summer, have restarted. The Israeli
government maintains a strict official silence on the subject.

Since July, Israel has released about 770 Palestinian prisoners in
three batches to shore up Abbas and his government in the West Bank.
About 9,000 Palestinian security prisoners remain in Israeli jails.

In Gaza, two Palestinians were killed early Monday in an Israeli
airstrike. Medical officials and witnesses said the two were Hamas
guards patrolling the border. An Israeli Army spokeswoman said there
had been an airstrike against Palestinians spotted near the border
fence.

Copyright © 2007 The International Herald Tribune 

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Intl Herald Tribune - Dec 23, 2007
http://www.iht.com/bin/printfriendly.php?id=8876035


Israel rejects Hamas request for cease-fire talks

By Isabel Kershner

JERUSALEM: Prime Minister Ehud Olmert of Israel rejected Sunday
overtures by Hamas, the militant Islamic group ruling Gaza, for
discussions about a temporary cease-fire.

At the same time, Olmert's government raised the ire of Palestinian
representatives from the West Bank, with whom Israel is embarking on
negotiations for a permanent peace, seeking budget approval to build
more housing for Jewish residents in areas the Palestinians claim for
their future state.

Israeli officials said that a Housing and Construction Ministry budget
proposal for 2008 included plans to build 500 apartments in Har Homa, a
Jewish development in a hotly disputed part of East Jerusalem, and a
further 240 apartments in Maale Adumim, the largest Jewish settlement
in the Israeli-occupied West Bank with a population of more than 30,000.

Israeli officials tried to play down the significance of the request.
Mark Regev, a spokesman for Olmert, said that the budget still had to
be approved by the Parliament, and that "there have been no new
decisions authorizing building in Maale Adumim." It was unclear whether
the budget request was for new projects that have not yet been approved
or for units already approved but not yet built.

Either way, the action is likely to cast a pall over a meeting of the
Israeli and Palestinian negotiating teams set for Monday, the second
since the U.S.-sponsored peace conference in Annapolis, Maryland, last
month.

The chief of the Palestinian negotiating team, Ahmed Qurei, issued a
statement saying that Annapolis and the ensuing negotiations toward an
accord would have "no meaning" if Israel continued its settlement
activities. He added that the Palestinians would raise the issue with
President George W. Bush in January.

Referring to the Gaza issue, Olmert said at the start of the weekly
cabinet meeting that "counterterrorist operations will continue as they
have for months," in response to the continued rocket fire directed at
Israel from the Gaza Strip.

At least five rockets were launched from Gaza on Sunday, an Israeli
Army spokesman said. One hit a factory in Ashkelon, a large city in
southern Israel, and another hit a building in the Israeli border town
of Sderot. They caused damage but no casualties.

Ismail Haniya, the leader of the Hamas government in Gaza, had
expressed a willingness, in a telephone call to an Israeli television
reporter last week, to enter into talks with Israel for a mutual
cease-fire. But Olmert said that Israel had "no interest in negotiating
with elements" who do not fulfill the internationally approved
conditions of recognizing Israel and renouncing violence.

Olmert also appeared to oppose any lull in the fighting based on an
informal understanding, describing the hostilities in Gaza as "a true
war" between the Israeli military and "terrorist elements." Defense
Minister Ehud Barak also ruled out talks with Hamas, but suggested that
if Hamas successfully stopped the rocket fire, Israel might reciprocate.

Barak was quoted by the Israeli media as telling the cabinet, "If they
stop firing, we won't be opposed to quiet." Similarly, the Israeli vice
prime minister, Haim Ramon, told Israel Radio: "Usually when there was
no terror activity against us we did not act against the terrorists."

But a Hamas spokesman, Ismail Radwan, said, "The Palestinian people
have a right to continue resistance."

Khaled al-Batch, a top official of Islamic Jihad, a militant group that
has been firing most of the rockets lately, said that his group would
only be willing to talk about a period of calm after Israel had "paid
for its war crimes" in blood.

Last week, the Israeli military killed at least eight Islamic Jihad
militants, including a top commander. The Israeli security cabinet on
Sunday allocated just over $200 million for the development of an
anti-missile system capable of knocking out short-range rockets and,
eventually, longer-range rockets like Katyushas. Thousands of Katyushas
were fired at Israel from Lebanon during the 2006 war.

With regard to the budget proposal for housing units in East Jerusalem
and the West Bank, both Israel and the Palestinians have committed to
fulfill the first phase of the road map, a long-dormant 2003 peace plan
that calls on the Palestinians to act to halt violence, and the
Israelis to cease settlement construction.

Olmert has pledged not to build new settlements or to expropriate
additional land. But Israel has always reserved the right to build in
major settlement blocs like Maale Adumim, which it intends to keep as
part of any permanent deal with the Palestinians, and Israel contends
that Jerusalem has a separate status.

Copyright © 2007 The International Herald Tribune