Adam Horowitz writes:
Collective punishment is defined as, "the punishment
of a group of people as a result of the behaviour of one or more other
individuals or groups. The punished group may often have no direct
association with the other individuals or groups, or direct control
over their actions." This action is considered a war crime under the Fourth Geneva Convention.
What then will be the Israeli accountability for the destruction of Gaza? Amira Hass refers to Gaza City as "Little Baghdad", quoting a resident. It is clear that the 2003 US "shock & awe" campaign in Iraq
has become the currently-accepted shorthand for nearly-unspeakable terror rained from the sky. It's worth quoting Hass's informant Abu Muhammad
in Gaza City at length:
Abu Muhammad was 200 meters from the hospital, when
an awful sound was heard: Three large police centers which were bombed,
were located close to the hospital. "Within seconds, this was a little
Baghdad, bombs everywhere, smoke, fire, people not knowing where to
hide. Fear everywhere, and rage and hatred," he said.
He himself ran to his daughters' school, like tens of thousands of
other parents in the Strip. From 11:25 until 11:30, as some 50
warplanes bombed their targets, hundreds of thousands of children were
in the streets. Some were coming from the first shift of classes,
others were going to the second. "In the schoolyard I saw 500
frightened girls, crying. They did not know me, but clung to me," Abu
Muhammad related.
Hass also quotes Dr. Haidar Eid, a lecturer in Cultural Studies at Al-Aqsa University: "To pick a time like this, 11:30 [A.M.], to bomb in
the hearts of cities, this is terrible. This choice was intended to
cause as large a massacre as possible."
I do not want to believe that Israel
would intentionally carry out an air campaign to massacre innocents,
and I would be willing to read this charge from Dr. Eid as the
understandable belief of a person under siege, shell shocked from the
horrible events of the day. That was until I read this from GOC Southern Command Yoav Galant, one of the key figures in the Israeli operation: "In attacking Hamas' regime in the Gaza Strip, the
Israel Defense Forces will try to "send Gaza decades into the past" in
terms of weapon capabilities while achieving "the maximum number of
enemy casualties and keeping Israel Defense Forces casualties at a
minimum."
Who are the "enemies" in Major General Galant's calculations? Abu Muhammad's daughters? Hamas gunmen? Is it possible to differentiate from 30,000 feet?
