White flags ignored and houses bulldozed with families inside, claim residents

* Fida Qishta in Khuza'a and Peter Beaumont in London
* The Observer, Sunday 18 January 2009
* Article history

Israel stands accused of perpetrating a series of war crimes during a sustained 12-hour assault on a village in southern Gaza last week in which 14 people died.

In testimony collected from residents of the village of Khuza'a by the Observer, it is claimed that Israeli soldiers entering the village:

• attempted to bulldoze houses with civilians inside;

• killed civilians trying to escape under the protection of white flags;

• opened fire on an ambulance attempting to reach the wounded;

• used indiscriminate force in a civilian area and fired white phosphorus shells.

If the allegations are upheld, all the incidents would constitute breaches of the Geneva conventions.

The denunciations over what happened in Khuza'a follow repeated claims of possible human rights violations from the Red Cross, the UN and human rights organisations.

The Israeli army announced yesterday that it was investigating "at the highest level" five other attacks against civilians in Gaza, involving two UN facilities and a hospital. It added that in all cases initial investigations suggested soldiers were responding to fire. "These claims of war crimes are not supported by the slightest piece of evidence," said Yigal Palmor, an Israeli foreign ministry spokesman.

Concern over what occurred in the village of Khuza'a in the early hours of Tuesday was first raised by the Israeli human rights group B'Tselem. Although an Israeli military spokesman said he had "no information that this alleged incident took place", witness statements collected by the Observer are consistent and match testimony gathered by B'Tselem.

There is also strong visible evidence that Khuza'a came under a sustained attack from tanks and bulldozers that smashed some buildings to pieces.

Pictures taken by photographer Bruno Stevens in the aftermath show heavy damage - and still burning phosphorus. "What I can tell you is that many, many houses were shelled and that they used white phosphorus," said Stevens yesterday, one of the first western journalists to get into Gaza. "It appears to have been indiscriminate." Stevens added that homes near the village that had not been hit by shell fire had been set on fire.

The village of Khuza'a is around 500 metres from the border with Israel. According to B'Tselem, its field researcher in Gaza was contacted last Tuesday by resident Munir Shafik al-Najar, who said that Israeli bulldozers had begun destroying homes at 2.30am.

When Rawhiya al-Najar, aged 50, stepped out of her house waving a white flag, so that the rest of the family could leave the house, she was allegedly shot by Israeli soldiers nearby.

The second alleged incident was on Tuesday afternoon, when Israeli troops ordered 30 residents to leave their homes and walk to a school in the village centre. After travelling 20 metres, troops fired on the group, allegedly killing three.

Further detailed accounts of what occurred were supplied in interviews given to a Palestinian researcher who has been working for the Observer, following the decision by Israel to ban foreign media from the Gaza Strip. Iman al-Najar, 29, said she watched as bulldozers started to destroy neighbours' homes and saw terrified villagers flee from their houses as masonry collapsed.

"By 6am the tanks and bulldozers had reached our house," Iman recalled. "We went on the roofs and tried to show we were civilians with white flags. Everyone was carrying a white flag. We told them we are civilians. We don't have any weapons. The soldiers started to destroy the houses even if the people were in them." Describing the death of Rawhiya, Iman says they were ordered by Israeli soldiers to move to the centre of the town. As they did, Israeli troops opened fire. Rawhiya was at the front of the group, says Iman.

Marwan Abu Raeda, 40, a paramedic working for the Nasser hospital in Khan Younis, said: "At 8am we received a phone call from Khuza'a. They told us about the injured woman. I went immediately. I was 60 or 70 metres away from the injured woman when the Israeli forces started to shoot at me." As he drove into another street, he came under fire again. Twelve hours later, when Rawhiya was finally reached, she was dead.

Iman said she ended up in an area of rubble where a large group of people had sought cover in a deep hole among the debris of demolished houses. It is then, she says, that bulldozers began to push the rubble from each side. "They wanted to bury us alive," she said.

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/LI246785.htm

nothing will advance unless they talk to Hamas, all the agreements between Fatah, US, Eygpt, Israel and others don't mean shit

How do Holocaust survivors in Israel feel about being called Nazis?

... Middle Eastern experience once again trumps emotion; as well it should. However, I reserve the right to say "Nazi like" behavior in reference to Israel's recent actions. It's leaders also act in very "questionable" ways, so to speak. On the other hand, emotion is the handmaiden of reason and gets things done.

...water. Israel has been fighting to gain any territory that involves the control of water. This is a battle that will be increasingly fought around the globe. There is nowhere on the globe that will escape the inevitability of wars for water. Until we humans can evolve to the point of co-operation in our mutual survival; there will be perpetual war. The jokes on us, because this all would have been unnecessary had we acted on information available 30 years ago. "Bye, bye American pie..."

After 22 days of fierce assaults in the Gaza Strip, Israel appear to be back at the starting point

By Nidal al-Mughrabi

GAZA, Jan 18 (Reuters) - Hamas said on Sunday it would cease fire immediately along with other militant groups in the Gaza Strip and give Israel, which already declared a unilateral truce, a week to pull its troops out of the territory.

A spokesman for Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said in response: "We'll play this day by day. We'll see how this goes. We want to leave Gaza. We'll do so as soon as we can."

Ayman Taha, a Hamas official in Cairo for talks with Egypt on the conflict, said the group and other factions were announcing a Gaza ceasefire "starting immediately" and Israel, which launched its offensive on Dec. 27, had a week to withdraw.

Hamas, he said, was demanding the opening of all Gaza border crossings for the entry of "all materials, food, goods and basic needs".

The Islamist group said previously it would not stop its attacks as long as Israeli soldiers remained in the Gaza Strip.

During the 22-day-long offensive, Israeli attacks killed more than 1,300 Palestinians, including some 700 civilians, Gaza medical officials said. Israel said hundreds of gunmen were among the dead. Ten Israeli soldiers were killed as well as three Israeli civilians hit by rockets.

Some 17 rockets hit southern Israel after the ceasefire Olmert declared went into effect at 2 a.m. (0000 GMT). Israel responded with two air strikes against launching sites and medical workers said a Palestinian civilian was killed.

At least one rocket struck southern Israel shortly after Hamas said it was halting attacks.

A statement issued by Hamas in Syria, which also announced the week-long ceasefire, said Palestinian factions were willing to respond to efforts by Egypt and others to broker an agreement for the "final lifting" of Israel's blockade of the Gaza Strip.

more

PressTV, January 18

An Israeli helicopter hovering above the Gaza City continues to carry out fresh strike despite a unilateral ceasefire announced by Tel Aviv.

Press TV broadcast live images of an Israeli helicopter hovering above the city and dropping its white phosphorous bombs on the city during a report by our correspondent Akram al-Sattari in the city.

Columns of smoke could be seen rising from the targeted neighborhoods on the 23rd day of the Israeli offensive against the impoverished coastal silver which has so far killed around 1,200 Palestinians and injured 6000 others.

A large number of the victims are women and children, according to figures by the UN and Palestinian medics.

There has been no immediate report of the casualties of the fresh strike.

Gunfire ends but the debate in Israel begins: should we have pressed on?

Broad public support for assault on Gaza Strip leaves some Israelis believing the ceasefire is a mistake

* Rachel Shabi in Tel Aviv
* guardian.co.uk, Sunday 18 January 2009 14.18 GMT

Talk of victory was scant in Israel today after the government's declaration of a unilateral ceasefire in Gaza. "The decision was terrible," said Shimon, a 55-year-old from Ra'anana, a town in Israel's interior. "We should carry on fighting until Hamas is devastated."

Overwhelmingly, the Israeli Jewish public supports the country's assault on Gaza. But while the Israeli prime minister, Ehud Olmert, described the three-week war as a "brilliant" achievement of Israel's objectives, the public does not seem as certain. "I hope we will succeed in halting the rockets, but I think the ceasefire was a little premature," said Avot Yitzhak, 48, from Tel Aviv. "They should have continued, to show [Hamas] that they really have lost."

Some people expressed ambivalence, best articulated by one presenter on Israeli Army Radio who said: "Did we achieve our objectives? Who knows, but let's thank God it's over."

There is also talk of a missed opportunity. "There is a broad consensus in support of the war and the public is prepared to put up with this situation for as long as it takes," said a 42-year-old man from Kiryat Shmona in the north of Israel. "How often does that happen?"

more

Israel's Barak gains in polls, Netanyahu stays ahead

is that Israel has opted into a set of rules that makes its own civilians fair and legitimate targets for military aggression. They will have no basis to complain-- although that surely won't stop them-- when (not if) their atrocities are returned unto them by others.

At this point I am about ready to concede that whatever it takes to extinguish Israel as a nation is for the greater benefit of the world. They had their chance to prove that the eggs broken to cook up their particular omelet were worth it, and they have spectacularly proved otherwise for two generations and counting.

Robert Fisk: So, I asked the UN secretary general, isn't it time for a war crimes tribunal?

Mr Ban said it would not be up to him to launch a war crimes tribunal. It was pathetic

Monday, 19 January 2009

It's a wrap, a doddle, an Israeli ceasefire just in time for Barack Obama to have a squeaky-clean inauguration with all the world looking at the streets of Washington rather than the rubble of Gaza. Condi and Ms Livni thought their new arms-monitoring agreement – reached without a single Arab being involved – would work. Ban Ki-moon welcomed the unilateral truce. The great and the good gathered for a Sharm el-Sheikh summit. Only Hamas itself was not consulted. Which led, of course, to a few wrinkles in the plan. First, before declaring its own ceasefire, Hamas fired off more rockets at Israel, proving that Israel's primary war aim – to stop the missiles – had failed. Then Cairo shrugged off the deal because no one was going to set up electronic surveillance equipment on Egyptian soil. And not one European leader travelling to the region suggested the survivors might be helped if Israel, the EU and the US ended the food and fuel siege of Gaza.

After killing hundreds of women and children, Israel was the good guy again, by declaring a unilateral ceasefire that Hamas was certain to break. But Obama will be smiling on Tuesday. Was not this the reason, after all, why Israel suddenly wanted a truce?

Egypt's objections may be theatre – the US spent £18m last year training Egyptian security men to stop arms smuggling into Gaza and since the US bails out Egypt's economy, ignores the corruption of its regime and goes on backing Hosni Mubarak, there's sure to be a "compromise" very soon.

And Hamas has had its claws cut. Israel's informers in Gaza handed over the locations of its homes and hideouts and the government of Gaza must be wondering if they can ever close down the spy rings. Hamas thought its militia was the Hizbollah – a serious error – and that the world would eventually come to its aid. The world (although not its pompous leaders) felt enormous pity for the Palestinians, but not for the cynical men of Hamas who staged a coup in Gaza in 2007 which killed 151 Palestinians. As usual, the European statesmen appeared hopelessly out of touch with what their own electorates thought.

And history was quite forgotten. The Hamas rockets were the result of the food and fuel siege; Israel broke Hamas's own truce on 4 and 17 November. Forgotten is the fact Hamas won the 2006 elections, although Israel has killed a clutch of the victors.

And there'll be little time for the peacemakers of Sharm el-Sheikh to reflect on the three UN schools targeted by the Israelis and the slaughter of the civilians inside. Poor old Ban Ki-moon. He tried to make his voice heard just before the ceasefire, saying Israel's troops had acted "outrageously" and should be "punished" for the third school killing. Some hope. At a Beirut press conference, he admitted he had failed to get a call through to Israel's Foreign Minister to complain.

It was pathetic. When I asked Mr Ban if he would consider a UN war crimes tribunal in Gaza, he said this would not be for him to "determine". But only a few journalists bothered to listen to him and his officials were quickly folding up the UN flag on the table. About time too. Bring back the League of Nations. All is forgiven.

What no one noticed yesterday – not the Arabs nor the Israelis nor the portentous men from Europe – was that the Sharm el-Sheikh meeting last night was opening on the 90th anniversary – to the day – of the opening of the 1919 Paris peace conference which created the modern Middle East. One of its main topics was "the borders of Palestine". There followed the Versailles Treaty. And we know what happened then. The rest really is history. Bring on the ghosts.

By ETHAN BRONNER

Parsing Gains of Gaza War

Have three weeks of overpowering war by Israel weakened Hamas as Israel had hoped, or simply caused acute human suffering?

Ban urges Arabs to back Abbas in Gaza crisis

19 Jan 2009 11:06:53 GMT
Source: Reuters
By Louis Charbonneau

KUWAIT, Jan 19 (Reuters) - U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Monday urged Arab leaders to join together in backing Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in his efforts to reunite the war-ravaged Gaza Strip with the West Bank.

Speaking a day after Israel and the militant Palestinian group Hamas announced separate ceasefires, Ban also said that Arab unity was crucial if the three-week Gaza conflict was not to be repeated in the future.

"The Palestinians themselves must face the challenge of reconciliation, and work to achieve a unified government under the leadership of President Abbas," Ban told an Arab League summit expected to approve $2 billion in aid to rebuild Gaza.

"I call on all Arab leaders to unite and support this endeavour. We cannot rebuild Gaza without Palestinian unity."

more

January 19 2009
By AMY TEIBEL and IBRAHIM BARZAK

Associated Press Writers= JERUSALEM (AP) — Israel plans to pull all of its troops out of the Gaza Strip by the time President-elect Barack Obama is inaugurated Tuesday, but only if Hamas militants hold their fire, Israeli officials said.

Thousands of troops have left Gaza since Israel declared Saturday its intention to unilaterally halt fire after a devastating, three-week Israeli onslaught. Gaza's Hamas rulers ceased fire 12 hours later. Large contingents of Israeli soldiers have kept close to the border, prepared to re-enter the territory if violence re-ignites.

A swift troop withdrawal would reduce the likelihood of clashes between militants and Israeli forces that could rupture the truce.

By getting its soldiers out before the Obama inauguration, Israel hopes to pave the way for a smooth beginning with the Obama administration and spare the incoming president the trouble of having to deal with a burning problem in Gaza from his first day, the Israeli officials said.

more

hmm I think I spotted some at MYDD ;)

Last update - 07:14 19/01/2009
Israel recruits 'army of bloggers' to combat anti-Zionist Web sites
By Cnaan Liphshiz
Tags: Israel, anti-Semitism, blog

The Immigrant Absorption Ministry announced on Sunday it was setting up an "army ohttp://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1056648.htmlf bloggers," to be made up of Israelis who speak a second language, to represent Israel in "anti-Zionist blogs" in English, French, Spanish and German.

The program's first volunteer was Sandrine Pitousi, 31, from Kfar Maimon, situated five kilometers from Gaza. "I heard about the project over the radio and decided to join because I'm living in the middle of the conflict," she said.

Before hanging up the phone prematurely following a Color Red rocket alert, Pitousi, who immigrated to Israel from France in 1993, said she had some experience with public relations from managing a production company.

"During the war, we looked for a way to contribute to the effort," the ministry's director general, Erez Halfon, told Haaretz. "We turned to this enormous reservoir of more than a million people with a second mother tongue." Other languages in which bloggers are sought include Russian and Portuguese.

Halfon said volunteers who send the Absorption Ministry their contact details by e-mail, at media@moia.gov.il, will be registered according to language, and then passed on to the Foreign Ministry's media department, whose personnel will direct the volunteers to Web sites deemed "problematic."

Within 30 minutes of announcing the program, which was approved by the Foreign Ministry on Sunday, five volunteers were already in touch, Halfon said.

and if Hamas wins again?

Posted: 19 January 2009 2324 hrs

KUWAIT CITY : Palestinian Authority president Mahmud Abbas on Monday called for the formation of a national unity government between his Fatah movement and its Hamas rivals followed by simultaneous presidential and legislative elections.

"What is required today ... is to form a (Palestinian) national unity government which will then conduct presidential and legislative elections simultaneously," Abbas said at an Arab economic summit in Kuwait.

"What is needed and necessary now is that all Palestinians should meet to reach an agreement," Abbas said.

The gulf which split the Palestinians in June 2007 after Hamas routed their Fatah rivals from Gaza in deadly street fighting is seen to have widened due to the 22-day war that the Jewish state waged on the Islamists.

Abbas, whose writ since Fatah's ouster has been limited to the West Bank, severed all contacts with Hamas after the Gaza takeover.

But an Arab meeting on the Gaza war was held in Qatar last Friday when Hamas for the first time attended a presidential-level gathering as a representative of the Palestinians.

more

Amnesty warns Israel could be guilty of war crimes

* Peter Beaumont in Jerusalem
* guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 21 January 2009 11.58 GMT

Israel has admitted – after mounting pressure – that its troops may have used white phosphorus shells in contravention of international law, during its three-week offensive in the Gaza Strip.

One of the places most seriously affected by the use of white phosphorus was the main UN compound in Gaza City, which was hit by three shells on 15 January. The same munition was used in a strike on the al-Quds hospital in Gaza City the same day.

Under review by Colonel Shai Alkalai is the use of white phosphorus by a reserve paratroop brigade in northern Israel.

more

BBC, January 23

The UN's humanitarian chief has told the BBC the situation in Gaza after a three-week Israeli offensive against Hamas was worse than he anticipated.

Sir John Holmes, who visited Gaza on Thursday, said he was shocked by "the systematic nature of the destruction".

He said that the territory's economic activity had been set back by years.

Meanwhile, Israeli PM Ehud Olmert is reported to have placed his justice minister in charge of defending Israel against any accusations of war crimes.

PressTV, January 24

The case for Israeli war crimes in Gaza gathers momentum as a prominent UN official calls for legal action against the assault architects.

John Ging, head of the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) in Gaza, called for an international investigation into the possible war crimes committed by the Israeli military during its 23-day offensive into the coastal territory.

According to Ging, it is urgent to establish accountability "for why the Israeli air force hit infrastructure of the state of Palestine rather than the infrastructure of terror, whatever that may be."

While Israeli forces deny committing war crimes during Operation Cast Lead, the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights asserts that the recent major attacks on the Gaza Strip will be successfully prosecuted.

"They were well-documented, televised and the world was paying attention," a member of the Gaza City team commented.

BBC, January 23

A senior member of Saudi Arabia's ruling family has warned the US that it needs to change attitudes over the Arab-Israeli conflict.

Prince Turki al-Faisal, a former Saudi intelligence chief and former ambassador to the US, said a failure to alter policies could threaten links.

The prince said ex-President George W Bush had left a "sickening legacy" in the Middle East.

He accused the US of contributing to the killing of Gazans.

As Israeli Bombing Stops, Gazans Get Busy Rebuilding Damaged Tunnels

New York Times, by Sabrina Tavernise, January 23

RAFAH, Gaza — It was Friday, the Muslim day of rest, but Gaza’s border with Egypt was a hive of activity. Men scraped sandy soil out of holes that had served as tunnels for smuggling, and were one of the main targets of Israel’s war in Gaza.

Now, less than a week after it ended, Gazans were back, plunging deep underground with lamps to carry rocky loads of soil out on pulleys.

“Everybody’s busy rebuilding now,” said a manager of one digging team. “In a month, it will be back to normal.”

The defiant pose seemed surprisingly brazen in light of recent events: Israel said smuggling tunnels were a prime concern, after Hamas rockets, in attacking Gaza, and it hit dozens of them in airstrikes during the war. But the tunnels are the principal livelihood for many people here, and as soon as the bombing stopped, they were right back in them with their shovels.

[...]

“The war was for nothing,” said Mahmoud Abu Adnan, a grocery store owner.

Andrew Higgins | January 24 | Moshav Tekuma

WSJ - Surveying the wreckage of a neighbor's bungalow hit by a Palestinian rocket, retired Israeli official Avner Cohen traces the missile's trajectory back to an "enormous, stupid mistake" made 30 years ago.

"Hamas, to my great regret, is Israel's creation," says Mr. Cohen, a Tunisian-born Jew who worked in Gaza for more than two decades. Responsible for religious affairs in the region until 1994, Mr. Cohen watched the Islamist movement take shape, muscle aside secular Palestinian rivals and then morph into what is today Hamas, a militant group that is sworn to Israel's destruction.

Instead of trying to curb Gaza's Islamists from the outset, says Mr. Cohen, Israel for years tolerated and, in some cases, encouraged them as a counterweight to the secular nationalists of the Palestine Liberation Organization and its dominant faction, Yasser Arafat's Fatah. Israel cooperated with a crippled, half-blind cleric named Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, even as he was laying the foundations for what would become Hamas. Sheikh Yassin continues to inspire militants today; during the recent war in Gaza, Hamas fighters confronted Israeli troops with "Yassins," primitive rocket-propelled grenades named in honor of the cleric.

more

[Comment: For those interested in more detail, related in a journalistic style, on the early days of the formation of HAMAS, I recommend Zaki Chehab's Inside HAMAS - I believe that it has been issued in paperback within the last year or so and should be readily available. ~ JPD]


“The absence of any US-Iran bilateral channel...may have the perverse effect of reinforcing Iranian interest in progressing in the nuclear realm so that the US will be forced to take it seriously and engage it directly." ~ Richard Haass

Ashraf Khalil | Gaza City | January 26

LATimes - Israeli Prime Minster Ehud Olmert on Sunday defended his country's 22-day offensive in the Gaza Strip and pledged to defend the military against international calls for an investigation of potential war crimes.

"The soldiers and commanders who were sent on missions in Gaza must know that they are safe from various tribunals and that the state of Israel will assist them on this issue and defend them," Olmert said before his weekly Cabinet meeting in Jerusalem.

Condemning what he called the "moral acrobatics" of critics he alleged are "trying to turn the attacker into the attacked and vice versa," Olmert said a specialized government team, headed by Justice Minister Daniel Friedmann, would coordinate a legal defense if necessary.

Global activists and some governments have called for an inquiry into charges that Israeli soldiers employed disproportionate force and used white phosphorus munitions in dense residential areas.

Human rights group Amnesty International has called Israel's use of white phosphorus "indiscriminate" and a war crime.

Israeli officials have insisted that their soldiers tried to avoid civilian casualties, and accuse Hamas fighters of cynically using Palestinian civilians as human shields while firing rockets at Israeli communities.

more

“The absence of any US-Iran bilateral channel...may have the perverse effect of reinforcing Iranian interest in progressing in the nuclear realm so that the US will be forced to take it seriously and engage it directly." ~ Richard Haass

Israeli troops killed Gaza children carrying white flag, witnesses say

McClatchy, By Dion Nissenbaum, January 27

EZBT ABED RABBO, Gaza Strip — Nasser Abu Freeh was one of the first to see the Israeli soldiers as they entered this pastoral Gaza neighborhood overlooking the Israeli border on Jan. 3, hours after the Israeli government ordered the first ground forces into Gaza.

Abu Freeh's two-story hilltop home is a favorite spot for Israeli soldiers, who used it as a command post during three previous attempts to deter Gaza militants from firing crude rockets into Israel from the surrounding cattle farms, orange groves and dirt alleys.

Scouts from the militant Islamist group Hamas also favored the hilltop as a place to watch for approaching Israeli soldiers, and the fighters tried to lure the Israelis into a trap by planting land mines outside Abu Freeh's home.

As the Israelis moved in, neighbors said, the Hamas scouts put up little resistance and quickly fell back into the more densely populated part of the neighborhood.

[...]

Abed Rabbo said he gathered his wife, their three daughters and his mother, Souad. Souad Abed Rabbo said that she tied a white robe around a mop handle and two of her granddaughters waved white headscarves as they walked outside.

When they opened the door, they saw an Israeli tank parked in their garden about 10 yards away.

"We were waiting for them to give us an order," Khaled said last week as he stood in the ruins of his home. "Then one came out of the tank and started to shoot."

Al Jazeera, January 30

The UN secretary-general has announced an investigation into the attack on the UN headquarters in the Gaza Strip during Israel's 22-day assault on the Palestinian territory.

Ban Ki-moon said on Thursday that he was angered by the "unacceptable" Israeli attacks on civilians and UN relief agency (Unrwa) compounds.

"Over the past several weeks, unacceptable and terrible situations have taken place against the civilian people and against particularly the United Nations compounds, where many civilians were sheltered," he said at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

The UN chief's announcement came shortly after nine people, seven of them schoolchildren, were injured in an Israeli air raid on Khan Yunis, a city in the southern Gaza Strip.

Ashraf Khalil | Khozaa | February 15

LATimes - The reddish-brown scorch marks are still visible on the roofs and cream-colored stucco walls.

Villagers here in this southern Gaza farm town say their neighborhood was showered with hundreds of chunks of burning white phosphorus, a controversial substance commonly used as a smoke screen to cover troop movements, over a three-day Israeli incursion in Khozaa last month.

Majid Najar said the phosphorus started fires all around the home where he had taken shelter along with 20 relatives. He said he was next door helping evacuate a pair of elderly neighbors when he felt the impact of something striking his home.

An empty shell casing had punched through the building's roof and an interior wall, striking his wife, Hannan, in the chest and killing her immediately.

On Jan. 24, a research team from Human Rights Watch visited Khozaa. Researcher Marc Garlasco, a weapons expert, examined the markings on the artillery shell that killed Hannan Najar.

"This is clearly white phosphorus," said Garlasco, a former Defense Intelligence Agency official. "See those markings? PB. This was made in Pine Bluff, Arkansas."

more

“The absence of any US-Iran bilateral channel...may have the perverse effect of reinforcing Iranian interest in progressing in the nuclear realm so that the US will be forced to take it seriously and engage it directly." ~ Richard Haass