Human Rights Glance
The Palestinian doctor became a symbol of the Gaza offensive after he captivated Israeli TV viewers with a sobbing live report on the death of his three daughters in Israeli shelling.
On Wednesday, Israel's military said its troops were fired on from nearby and called the mistaken identification of people in his house as combatants "reasonable."
Israel: Attack that killed Gaza girls ‘reasonable’
US threatens Britain over terrorism 'torture evidence'
Binyam Mohamed, a British resident held at the American base, has launched a legal challenge in the High Court in London for documents detailing his treatment to be made public.
However, two judges ruling on the case said that David Miliband, the Foreign Secretary, had advised that releasing the documents could lead to America withdrawing intelligence co-operation.
US 'made things worse'
The United States has turned a blind eye to abuses by its allies in Somalia and worsened the situation there by reducing a complex conflict to a front in its "war on terror", a leading human rights group said.
US-based Human Rights Watch (HRW) said in a letter to African Union Commission chairperson Jean Ping that the policies of many governments had been destructive in Somalia.
"US policy on Somalia has been particularly unhelpful, treating Somalia's complex realities as a theatre in the 'war on terror' while turning a blind eye to rampant abuses by the Ethiopian and transitional government forces," HRW said in the letter that was handed to reporters at an AU summit on Sunday.
Gideon Levy: Israel's courts are accomplices to war crimes
One silence, of all the shameful silences, has thus far roared especially loud - the silence of the jurists. The 41,000 attorneys in the State of Israel are entrusted with protecting its image as a lawful state, and this large and grand army has once again strayed from its function. There is a deep suspicion throughout the world that Israel carried out a series of war crimes, and the jurists of our country are holding their peace.
Where, for instance, is Aharon Barak when we really need him? Where are his colleagues, the former justices of the Supreme Court, who knew very well how to raise their voices when Justice Minister Daniel Friedmann threatened to harm the apple of their eye, and who now hide in their cowardly silence?
Israeli military refuses water filtration system for Gaza
The French Foreign Ministry said Friday that Israel has refused to allow the French government from bringing the filtration system to Gaza, where people have been without clean water for weeks.
In some parts of Gaza, sewage is flooding streets and homes after the three-week long Israeli assault that ended last week when Israeli officials declared a ceasefire.
The Israeli military has violated the ceasefire seven times since then, including an attack yesterday that wounded a number of primary school students in Khan Younis. Palestinian fighters killed one soldier who was invading southern Gaza in violation of the ceasefire.
Meanwhile, the Israeli imposed closure of the Gaza Strip remains in place, and Palestinians have been unable to even clean the racist graffiti and feces smeared on their walls by the Israeli military, due to the lack of water.
Obama preserves renditions as counter-terrorism tool
The CIA's secret prisons are being shuttered. Harsh interrogation techniques are off-limits. And Guantanamo Bay will eventually go back to being a wind-swept naval base on the southeastern corner of Cuba.
But even while dismantling these programs, President Obama left intact an equally controversial counter-terrorism tool.
Under executive orders issued by Obama recently, the CIA still has authority to carry out what are known as renditions, secret abductions and transfers of prisoners to countries that cooperate with the United States.
TVNL Comment: How is that for "change"?
Israeli soldiers recall Gaza attack orders
“Fire on anything that moves in Zeitoun” – that was the order handed down to Israeli troops in the Givati Shaked battalion, who reduced the eastern Gaza City suburb to little more than rubble in a matter of days.
According to Israeli soldiers who took part in the three-week offensive, the destruction of the area, a known Hamas stronghold, was designed to send a wider message to Gazans. “We pounded Zeitoun into the ground,” an Israeli soldier who was deployed in the area, told The Times.
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