Amid surging worries about a global pandemic, the United States launched border screening for swine flu exposure Monday and a top federal health official said people should brace for more severe cases, “and possibly deaths.”

Richard Besser, acting head of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, revealed that American authorities were undertaking “passive screening” at its borders and reiterated the Obama administration’s call for people to remain calm. Besser said that U.S. officials at border checkpoints were “asking people about fever and illness, looking for people who are ill.”

Besser discussed the problem on morning news shows as President Barack Obama prepared to address it later Monday morning in remarks to a meeting of the nation’s top scientists.

The U.S. declared a national health emergency Sunday in the midst of uncertainty about whether a mounting sick count really meant ongoing infections — or just that health officials had missed something simmering for weeks or months. But the declaration did allow Washington to ship roughly 12 million doses of flu-fighting medications from a federal stockpile to states in case they eventually need them.

Besser traveled the morning news-show circuit Monday, telling interviewers the U.S. government was being “extremely aggressive” and saying he wouldn’t personally recommend traveling to parts of Mexico where the new virus has taken hold. But he noted that the issue of a travel ban was under discussion and that nothing had been decided.

Besser said he was not reassured by the fact that so far in the U.S., no one has died from the disease.

“From what we understand in Mexico, I think people need to be ready for the idea that we could see more severe cases in this country and possibly deaths,” he said. “That’s something people have to be ready for and we’re looking for that. So far, thankfully, we haven’t seen that. But we’re very concerned and that’s why we’re taking very aggressive measures.”

A private school in South Carolina closed after some students returned from Mexico with flu-like symptoms.

Officials of Newberry Academy said in a statement that seniors were in Mexico earlier this month and some had flu like symptoms when they returned. Calls to the school went unanswered Monday.

State Department of Health and Environmental Control spokesman Jim Beasley said test results on the students could come back as early as Monday afternoon. The agency has stepped up efforts to investigate all flu cases in South Carolina. There have been no confirmed swine flu cases in the state.

In Mexico, the outbreak’s epicenter, soldiers handed out 6 million face masks to help stop the spread of the novel virus that is suspected in up to 103 deaths. Most other countries are reporting only mild cases so far, with most of the sick already recovering. Cases have been confirmed in Canada — six — and the U.S. — 20.

Spain reported its first confirmed swine flu case on Monday and said another 17 people were suspected of having the disease. The European Union health commissioner advised Europeans to avoid nonessential travel to Mexico and the United States. Also, three New Zealanders recently returned from Mexico are suspected of having it.

Elsewhere, the European Union advised against nonessential travel to Mexico and the United States. China, Russia and Taiwan considered quarantines, and several other Asian countries undertook to question travelers arriving at airports.

Complicating response strategies across the globe was what World Health Organization spokesman Peter Cordingley described as major difficulty that experts were having in assessing precisely the nature of the threat.

“These are the early days. It’s quite clear that there is a potential for this virus to become a pandemic and threaten globally,” Cordingley said. He said it was spreading rapidly in Mexico and the southern United States.

Cordingley said “honestly don’t know” the extent of the problem. He added: “We don’t know enough yet about how this virus operates. More work needs to be done.”

Multiple airlines, including American, United, Continental, US Airways, Mexicana and Air Canada, said they were waiving usual penalties for changing reservations for anyone traveling to, from, or through Mexico, but have not canceled flights.

Meantime, the World Bank said it would send Mexico $25 million in loans for immediate aid and $180 million in long-term assistance to address the outbreak, plus advice on how other nations have dealt with similar crises. Mexico officials say the flu strain may have sickened 1,614 people since April 13 but laboratory testing to confirm that and how many truly died from it — at least 22 so far out of the 103 suspected deaths — is taking time.

Worldwide, attention focused sharply on travelers.

“It was acquired in Mexico, brought home and spread,” Nova Scotia’s chief public health officer, Dr. Robert Strang, said of Canada’s first confirmed cases.

A New York City school where eight cases were confirmed will be closed Monday and Tuesday, and 14 schools in Texas, including a high school where two cases were confirmed, will be closed for at least the next week. Some schools in California and Ohio also were closing after students were found or suspected to have the flu.

In additions to preparations for quarantines in Russia, Taiwan and China, Singapore, Thailand, Japan, Indonesia, South Korea and the Philippines were checking for signs of fever among passengers arriving at airports from North America. In Malaysia, health workers in face masks took the temperatures of passengers as they arrived from a flight from Los Angeles.

Travelers with flu-like symptoms would be given detailed health checks.

Vesser said that while the U.S. hasn’t advised against travel to Mexico, it has urged people to take precautions, such as frequent hand-washing while there.

Source: AP

Or are relatively limited number of deaths an indication that the panic is worse than the actual threat?

There are some factors that suggest the swine flu killing people in Mexico may be a biological weapon, but obviously no such conclusion can be drawn at this time. The World Health Organization and the U.S. government have been quick to deny such claims.

The swine flu virus is described as a completely new strain, an intercontinental mixture of human, avian and swine viruses. Tellingly, there have been no reported A-H1N1 infections of pigs.

According to a source known to former NSA official Wayne Madsen, “A top scientist for the United Nations, who has examined the outbreak of the deadly Ebola virus in Africa, as well as HIV/AIDS victims, concluded that H1N1 possesses certain transmission “vectors” that suggest that the new flu strain has been genetically-manufactured as a military biological warfare weapon.

Madsen claims that his source, and another in Indonesia, “Are convinced that the current outbreak of a new strain of swine flu in Mexico and some parts of the United States is the result of the introduction of a human-engineered pathogen that could result in a widespread global pandemic, with potentially catastrophic consequences for domestic and international travel and commerce.”

However, it’s important to stress that it is far too early to make this assumption. We have to bear in mind that the number of victims has been comparatively low when one considers the fact that hundreds of thousands in Mexico contract infectious diseases every year related to poverty like tuberculosis and malaria.

Fort Detrick, the U.S. Army Medical Command installation that was the source of the 2001 anthrax attacks, is again attracting suspicion in light of the swine flu panic after it was revealed that criminal investigators are probing whether virus samples recently went missing from its biolabs.

“Chad Jones, spokesman for Fort Meade, said CID is investigating the possibility of missing virus samples from the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases,” reports The Frederick News.

In February, USAMRIID halted their work when virus samples were discovered that were not listed in its inventory. Criminal investigators from the U.S. Army Criminal Investigation Division unit at Fort Meade are now probing whether virus samples are missing from the Army’s top biolab, which also studies pathogens including ebola, anthrax and plague.

Obviously, in light of the current swine flu scare, and the new strain’s possible synthetic origin, the fact that virus samples may have gone missing from the same Army research lab from which the 2001 anthrax strain was released is extremely disturbing.

A 2008 FBI and DOJ investigation concluded that Bruce Edwards Irvins, a microbiologist, vaccinologist, and senior biodefense researcher at the United States Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID) in Fort Detrick, Maryland, was responsible for mailing anthrax to members of Congress and the media in September and October 2001.

The fact that Irvins apparently committed suicide shortly before the announcement led many to suspect that he was a patsy in a wider plot. Despite the suspicious circumstances, no autopsy was carried out on Irvins’ body. His attorney was certain that Irvins, who had cooperated with the 6-year investigation, was innocent of the five anthrax deaths.

The Department of Justice initially considered Dr. Steven Jay Hatfill to be a strong suspect in the anthrax attacks, but he later sued the government and won $5.8 million in damages. A New York Times piece on Irvins’ suicide asked the hypothetical question: “What if Dr. Hatfill had committed suicide in 2002, as friends feared he might? Would the investigators have released their evidence and announced that the perpetrator was dead?”

Fears that a mass pandemic was being readied as a biological attack have rumbled on in the conspiracy community ever since 9/11. Investigators point to the highly unusual number of deaths of top microbiologists to suggest that people with knowledge of the program are being eliminated.

Thanks Prison Planet

The 60s were a tumultuous time in America. There were the Vietnam War and its subsequent peace movement; the Kennedy assassinations; the Martin Luther King assassination, and the mass shooting at the University of Texas by Charles Whitman. The high-profile assassinations and the mass shooting prompted the government to lobby for stronger gun control, leading to the passage of the unconstitutional, NRA supported, 1968 Gun Control Act.

With the exception of the Vietnam War and its protest activity, all of the above events played into the hands of the state and its never-ending efforts to disarm private citizens. While the only common denominator in the University of Texas shooting involved the use of mind altering drugs by the shooter, the three assassinations were similar in accusations of Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) involvement was alleged in each of them.

It was reported that President Lyndon Johnson was moved by the University shooting to move for stronger gun control; the facts of the case supported just the opposite. After Whitman killed his mother and wife by stabbing them to death, he went to the University Tower where his next victim, Edna Townsley, a receptionist, was butt-stroked with a rifle, which led to her death. Whitman had in essence killed three people before he pulled the trigger the first time.

When victims began to fall from shots fired by Whitman from the University Tower, several civilians secured weapons from their cars and began to return fire at Whitman along with police on the scene. The combined efforts of these civilians and the police forced Whitman to shoot from waterspouts, greatly limiting his ability to acquire additional targets. Had it not been for the deployment of private arms by civilians, the toll of lives lost and those wounded would have been much larger. Yet, the state used this tragedy to move for more draconian firearms possession limitations on private citizens.

Conspiracy theories abound concerning the assassinations of president John F. Kennedy, Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King. As mentioned above, the CIA is mentioned as possibly being involved in all three. We do know the CIA lied about aspects of the JFK assassination. Lies are usually told to hide the truth; what truth was the CIA covering up for 40 years, and why? Why did the CIA withhold evidence from the Warren Commission and defy court orders?

Did the CIA use their “controlled” sources in the media to demonize and ridicule any who found irregularities in the “Pablum” force-fed to the masses concerning the assassination? An April 1^st 1967, CIA dispatch, declassified through the Freedom Of Information Act (FOIA) in 1976, advised the CIA’s “assets” in the media on “Countering criticism of the Warren Report.” These “assets” were instructed features and book revues to be “particularly appropriate” for this purpose. These controlled media sources were to “answer and refute” those critical of the state’s explanation of events by claiming “financial interests” and to allege they were “hasty and inaccurate in their research” and “infatuated with their own theories.” These CIA stooges in the media were instructed to emphasize in their reporting, “no new significant evidence has emerged,” and there was no consistency of thought among the critics. Critics were to be discredited by claiming they were “wedded to theories before all the evidence was in.” Also used was the claim consistently heard about all possible conspiracies involving the state: “Conspiracy on such a large scale would be impossible to conceal.”

The FBI, Secret Service, and the Dallas Police Department withheld evidence from the Warren Commission. As the commission had no investigators of its own, and depended entirely on the above-mentioned agencies for evidence, the credibility of the report must be questioned.

If questioning the veracity of the state’s official report on the JFK assassination and the withholding and suppression of evidence by those tasked with pursuing the truth makes me a “conspiracy nut,” pass the tinfoil.

Credible allegations of CIA involvement in the Robert Kennedy assassination can be found here. Please note CIA Agent George Joannides’s alleged involvement in both the Kennedy’s assassinations.

Allegations of CIA and other state agency’s involvement in the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. have been made by aides and members of the King family. Coretta Scott King said, “There is abundant evidence of a major high level conspiracy in the assassination of my husband…” Dexter King, son of Martin Luther King Jr., who met with James Earl Ray before his death and stated he believed Ray did not kill his father, also stated his father was assassinated “because he challenged the establishment.” Dexter King also referred to the official investigation and findings as “the most incredible cover-up of the century.”

Martin Luther King Jr. had been under surveillance by the FBI, CIA and Army Intelligence for an extended period of time before his assassination because he supposedly represented a threat to national security. His phones were tapped, he was under continual surveillance, his rooms were bugged and his followers infiltrated. Yet, he was assassinated in plain sight and none of the above agencies had a clue as to the plans or movements of the assassin.

The FBI was assigned the task of investigating the assassination of the man they considered a threat to national security and a subject of their “dirty tricks” associated with COINTEL-PRO activities.

Author Alex Constantine, in his work, Virtual Government: CIA Mind Control Operations in America, has exhaustively documented the CIA’s influence in the media through Operation Mockingbird. When a government agency has the ability to control the content of information disseminated to the masses, is that not a form of mind control?

The state used all of the above highly questionable events to propose and pass the 1968 Gun Control Act. The wording of this piece of legislation was taken almost word for word from the 1938 Nazi Gun Control Act. The 1968 GCA is not the state’s only connection with Nazi programs. How many are familiar with the CIA’s connection with Nazi war criminals?

Let me see now; The 1968 Gun Control Act is a re-do of the 1938 Nazi Gun Control Act; The CIA had a Nazi war criminal connection from its very inception; The CIA is alleged to have involvement in several high-profile assassinations in America; The CIA uses its rented mules (Operation Mockingbird) in the mainstream media (MSM) to demonize and marginalize anyone who seeks to investigate the irregularities in the state-issued reports of these assassinations and other possible covert actions; Our form of government has morphed from a republic to in-your-face fascism, and anyone who believes there is a connection between the state and mass shootings is a conspiracy nut!

When the only alternative Boobus utilizes in his search for truth is text messaging, a six-pack and American Idol, what chance is there he would even recognize the truth, or for that matter, even care?

Thanks to LewRockwell

Perhaps due to the genetic makeup of the fast-spreading H1N1 strain of influenza — which includes genetic elements from bird flu, swine flu and human flu spanning three continents — there is considerable speculation that the origins of this virus are man-made.

It’s not an unreasonable question to ask: Could world governments, spooked by the prospect of radical climate change caused by over-population of the planet, have assembled a super-secret task force to engineer and distribute a super virulent strain of influenza designed to “correct” the human population (and institute global Martial Law)?

Technically, it’s possible. The U.S. military, all by itself, has the know-how to engineer and unleash such a virus. That doesn’t mean they’ve done so, however. It would be an astonishing leap into crimes against humanity to intentionally unleash such a biological weapon into the wild.

Then again, governments of the world have routinely engaged in crimes against humanity, haven’t they? The U.S., for example, dropped nuclear bombs on civilian populations in Japan. Israel rained white phosphorous on Palestinians, Hitler exterminated countless Jews, and Americans fired millions of rounds of depleted uranium rounds into targets in Iraq and Afghanistan. Unleashing a viral biological weapon in Mexico City is no great leap beyond what governments have already done to achieve their goals.

Throughout human history, virtually all the great crimes against humanity have been carried out by governments — mostly in the name of peace, prosperity and security, by the way. So let’s be clear about one thing: Governments are certainly capable of doing this if properly motivated. Let there be no question about that.

As of this moment, I have not personally seen any conclusive evidence of laboratory origins for this H1N1 swine flu. I am open to the possibility that new evidence may emerge in this direction, however, and I am suspicious of the genetic makeup of the virus as one possible indicator of its origins.

I am not a medical specialist in the area of infectious disease, but I have studied microbiology, genetics and a considerable amount of material on pandemics. What seems suspicious to me is the hybrid origin of the viral fragments found in H1N1 influenza. According to reports in the mainstream media (which has no reason to lie about this particular detail), this strain of influenza contains viral code fragments from:

• Human influenza
• Bird Flu from North America
• Swine flu from Europe
• Swine flu from Asia

This is rather astonishing to realize, because for this to have been a natural combination of viral fragments, it means an infected bird from North America would have had to infect pigs in Europe, then be re-infected by those some pigs with an unlikely cross-species mutation that allowed the bird to carry it again, then that bird would have had to fly to Asia and infected pigs there, and those Asian pigs then mutated the virus once again (while preserving the European swine and bird flu elements) to become human transmittable, and then a human would have had to catch that virus from the Asian pigs — in Mexico! — and spread it to others. (This isn’t the only explanation of how it could have happened, but it is one scenario that gives you an idea of the complexity of such a thing happening).

Continued at Natural News

The Al Mezan Center for Human Rights is a Gaza-based Palestinian NGO mandated “to promote, protect and prevent violations of human rights in general, and economic, social and cultural rights in particular, to provide effective aid to those victims of such violations, and to enhance the quality of life of the community in (Gaza’s) marginalized sectors.”

It monitors and documents violations, provides legal aid and advocacy, and helps Gazans on “fundamental issues such as basic human rights, democracy, and international humanitarian” matters. It also produces reports and publications on its work.

In April, it published a seven-case study update of its July 2008 report titled: “Hiding Behind Civilians – The Continued Use of Palestinian Civilians as Human Shields by the Israeli Occupation Forces.” This article reviews both reports to highlight what international law unequivocally prohibits. Nonetheless, it’s customary IDF practice even though Israel’s Supreme Court banned it on October 6, 2005.

One Palestinian woman described her experience:

“They handcuffed and blindfolded me. Then, they forced us to move out of the room, pushing me with their hands and guns to move although I was blindfolded and pregnant. I heard them pushing others to hurry up as well. I got exhausted and fell down many times. I told them that I was four months pregnant and couldn’t continue but a soldier threatened to shoot me.”

Other witness testimonies related similar stories, at times with tragic consequences for its victims. Israel is a party to various human rights laws and conventions. As a result, it’s obligated to respect and protect the rights of people it controls.

Under Article 3 of the UN General Assembly’s 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR): “everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person.”

Under Article 5: “no one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.”

Under Article 9: “no one shall be subjected to arbitrary arrest, detention or exile.”

The General Assembly’s 1977 International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) affirms the same rights. Under Article 17: “no one shall be subjected to arbitrary or unlawful interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence.”

Both international humanitarian law (IHL) and international human rights law (IHRL) protect life, well-being and dignity. ILH deals with armed conflicts while IHRL applies to peace as well as war. Hague and Geneva Conventions comprise the main body of IHL, and strike a balance between military necessity and humanitarian considerations. As an occupying power, Israel is obligated under them.

Fourth Geneva protects civilians in war time, including those in Occupied Palestine. It restricts the use of force and prohibits seizing non-combatants as hostages, including persons who’ve laid down their arms or can’t fight because of illness, injury or any other reason.

Article 34 states: “the taking of hostages is prohibited.” Article 28 states: “the presence of a protected person may not be used to render certain points or areas immune from military operations.” Article 29 states: “the Party to the conflict in whose hands protected persons may be, is responsible for the treatment accorded to them by its agents, irrespective of any individual responsibility which may be incurred.”

Protocol I, Article 51, paragraph 7 states: “the presence or movements of the civilian population or individual civilians shall not be used to render certain points or areas immune from military operations, in particular in attempts to shield military objectives from attacks or to shield, favor or impede military operations.” In other words, using civilians as human shields is prohibited under all circumstances.

Further, the International Criminal Court’s (ICC) Rome Statute, Article 8 prohibits the “Taking of hostages.” Israel isn’t a Court member but is obligated under international law. Nonetheless, it flaunts it with impunity.

Al Mezan collected sworn testimonies of people’s homes seized and used as military posts for days with their residents confined for prolonged periods, beaten and abused, prevented from normal activities, and put in harm’s way.

Another practice was called the “neighbor procedure,” later changed to “the prior warning procedure” to get around a Court prohibition. Israel commandeers civilians, has them knock on neighbors’ doors, usually at night, to deliver military orders to submit to arrest. Hostages are put in harm’s way when violence at times erupts that may result in deaths or injuries.

Finally the practice was banned, but Israel blatantly disregarded its own High Court ruling as well as its clear obligation under IHL. It continues to use civilian men, women and children as human shields.

During the Second Intifada (especially for Israel’s large-scale West Bank Operation Defensive Shield incursion), Amnesty International (AI) said the following in October 2005:

AI “investigated tens of cases where the Israeli army used Palestinians, children as well as adults, as ‘human shields’ during military operations in towns and refugee camps throughout the Occupied Territories. Palestinians were forced to walk in front of Israeli soldiers who, at times, fired their weapons while shielding themselves behind the civilians. As well (they) were made to enter houses ahead of Israeli soldiers to check for explosives or gunmen hiding inside, to inspect suspicious objects, to stay in their houses when Israeli soldiers took them over to use as sniper positions, or to enter the houses of wanted, possibly armed, Palestinians to tell them to surrender to Israeli forces.”

B’Tselem reports that Israel routinely uses “human shields (as) an integral part of the orders received by Israeli soldiers….” Al Mezan documented “dozens of cases” in Gaza in spite of specific High Court prohibitions, usually at times of incursions. Case studies below refute Israeli claims about respecting civilians, not using them as shields, and abiding strictly according to international and its own case law.

Israeli officials lie. As standard practice, they seize Palestinian civilians randomly, including women and young children, then force them into harm’s way. Usually to:

– let soldiers commandeer their homes as military posts and for sniper positions;

– check for possible booby-traps in buildings;

– order occupants inside to leave;

– remove suspicious objects anywhere soldiers may go;

– shield them from gunfire or thrown rocks; and

– perform whatever other tasks soldiers order under very real threats they’ll be shot if they refuse.

Orders to conduct these practices come from top commanders, not soldiers in the field.

Case Study Examples – 2008 and 2009

Number 1

On July 10, 2008, the IDF forced Rana Mofeed Awad An-Nabaheen, age 11, to visit a relative’s house delivering orders to leave. On return, she was shot in the stomach by other soldiers, unaware she was acting under orders. Family member Mahir Hamdan Mheisin An-Nabaheen provided eyewitness sworn testimony. At about 4:30AM, vehicles, helicopters and gunfire woke him.

“I peeked through a window and saw Israeli soldiers breaking into my family member’s house and forcing them to get out.” Rana delivered orders to leave. He then heard heavy gunfire. “I peeked out and saw Rana near the gate screaming and saying: ‘I am injured.’ I stepped back into the house and gave her my hand….I pulled her back into the house. The gunfire became heavier. I left Rana bleeding and took cover behind a wall. Rana crawled two steps and lay on the floor….I saw her entrails coming out of her abdomen.
A physician in military uniform came, brought a bandage, and put it on her abdomen. The commander fastened Rana to a carrier, then ordered two soldiers to carry her.” This case is typical of many others.

Number 2

It involves the arrest of civilians, including a pregnant woman, from the As-Sreij neighborhood in eastern Al-Qarara village in Khan Younis. They were held in an agricultural field and forced to accompany soldiers towards the separation border. The men were detained, women and children ordered to leave. They were shot at en route, then used as human shields during the operation. Out of fear of reprisals, the witness remained anonymous.

On April 3, 2008, at 7:30AM, her husband wasn’t answering his mobile at the time an Israeli force entered the area where he was working. She rushed there with his ID card. “When I was on my way, I heard somebody shouting and ordering me to stop and come towards him….I tried to explain that I had come to give my husband his ID card but they threatened to shoot me.”

“They led me to a room where I saw seven men and a woman with her two daughters, who were detained. The men were handcuffed and blindfolded. They handcuffed and blindfolded me. Then, they forced us to move out of the room, pushing me with their hands and guns although I was blindfolded and pregnant….They stopped for a while and took off my blindfold….I saw them taking the men across the border, and then heard one of them ordering us to leave the area….I heard heavy gunfire.”

“I had to crawl for a long time to leave the area….I found (soldiers) who forced me to stop. I tried to explain what happened but they threatened to shoot me and forced me to sit down with a child of (a) family….One soldier forced the child to take his shirt off and tied his hands with it. There were many explosions and intensive firing.”

“I managed to go home at around 13:00 on the same day. My husband returned home at around 21:00 on the same day. I knew he was detained in a military post close to the border line.”

This is another human shield example that “demonstrates the complete disregard of the soldiers for the life of a pregnant woman and her unborn child.” They were used as cover for Israeli forces to withdraw from the area.

Other cases were of medical teams forced to carry out life-threatening tasks, homes used as military posts and their residents as human shields, and a 14 year old boy used for the same purpose.

On April 9, 2009, Al Mezan presented an updated report, containing seven new case studies “based on comprehensive field investigations and witness statements,” these based on incidents during Operation Cast Lead and one earlier in 2008.

“In endangering the lives of civilian men, women and children through systematically using them as human shields, the (IDF committed) crimes against humanity according to IHL.” This is one of many violations against non-combatant Palestinian civilians.

Number 1: 15-year-old child used as a human shield

After being used for that purpose, the child was detained in a hole in the ground with about 100 others for four days. He now suffers from serious mental health difficulties and refuses to speak to strangers. With help from his parents, Al Mezan got him to tell his story and presented excepts from it below. At home with his parents, he was terrified by days of conflict.

“I was lying on the floor sheltering with my mother.” His uncle then said: ‘Come downstairs.’ “So we all went downstairs. As soon as we opened the door, I saw a large number of soldiers. One of them was pointing his weapon at me….I saw my uncle and brothers lined up against the wall. I saw the soldier signaling at me to stand beside them. So I did….he wanted me to put my hands up. So I did. Another soldier came and searched me from top to bottom….He tied my hands to the hands of the people next to me.”

“I stood by the wall. A few minutes later one of the soldiers came and kicked me. About two hours later, they ordered us to walk….they made us go into Khalil al-Attar’s house….Then they told us all go, as a chain, into one of the rooms.” They took us outside the house….I heard the sound of a huge explosion in the area. From there they took us to a farm.”

“They made us sit on the ground until dawn the following day. Then they took us outside the field (and) blindfolded my eyes….they led us to a low-lying area. They made us sit on the ground….They tied my hands in front of my stomach. They searched me a third time and made me sit on the ground….After they took of my blindfold….I realized where the low-lying area was. It was a hole made by Israeli forces….south of the American school.”

“We spent the whole night in this hole. I couldn’t sleep. The weather was really cold and I wasn’t wearing a lot of clothing. We stayed in this hole for four days….I could hear the sound of shooting and explosions” close by. We got one meal each afternoon….”On the third day I saw a soldier making a wire fence around the hole (and bring) a lot of people to the hole until the number reached around 100. On the morning of the fourth day, an Israeli soldier untied me, my brother Ali, my cousins Hussein and Khalil. They told us and the women to go to Jabalia.

Case 2: Majdi al-Abed Ahmed Abed Rabbo, male, age 40

On January 5 at 9:30AM, he was at home when he heard a loud sound and someone say, “Open the door….I arrived at the door and opened it. I was surprised to see an (IDF) soldier hiding behind a man in his twenties and pointing a gun at me. He said in Arabic, ‘Take off your pants.’ I took” them off. He ordered him to strip naked, then get dressed. About “15 – 20 Israeli soldiers then entered the courtyard of my house….one grabbed my neck from behind and put his gun to the back of my head.”

“Two other soldiers hid behind me….They told me to lead them to the roof, where they searched pigeon coups that I keep in two rooms there.” A soldier then asked about the adjacent house, belonging to his cousin and connected to his home by a common roof. “There’s no space between the two houses, just the wall.”

“After that, one of the soldiers brought a demolition tool and said, ‘Drill a hole there.’….Then three soldiers went through the hole to (his cousin’s) house.” He was told to come as well along with more soldiers, then told, “Get up. Get up,” and grabbed violently. “I got up and entered with them through the hole back to my roof, and they all went as a group down the stairs. This happened quickly….The whole group was running.”

“The soldiers led me outside. I found myself in a mud road….One of the soldiers was holding me and making me run with him. Another soldier was bringing the young man with him the same way, and (he) had his hands tied. They pushed me in the mosque through its main door to the north….They tied my hands in front of my stomach and tied my legs and sat me down (in one corner). We entered the house adjacent to the mosque. They took us out and turned us toward another house,” then sat us down nearby.

In one house, a soldier said, there were gunmen and we killed them. “Go take their clothes off and bring their guns and come back.”

“I refused. I asked him to let me return to my family. I said to him:” going into that house “means death, and I don’t want to die.” The soldier responded, ‘You are here to do what we tell you (and said) Go.’

“I walked about 200 meters to the house….I went in…I went alone….but couldn’t find anyone. I expected the worst.” He encountered three armed men wearing badges saying Al Qassam Brigades. He said he was forced to come. They told him to go back and say what he saw – “three gunmen in the house, still alive….then the soldier said to me, ‘The officer says he’s crazy and if you are lying to him he swears by his mother he will shoot you.”

“A short time later, I heard the sound of heavy gunfire nearby. Twenty minutes passed….and a soldier said to me; ‘We killed them now. Go get them.’ I refused. I told them that they had told me that if I returned they would kill me, and he shouted at me: ‘We killed them.’ ”

He went again and found one man seriously injured and bleeding and the others alive. He reported back what he saw, then heard heavy gunfire and a very loud explosion. A soldier said; ‘Go and make sure they are dead. We bombed the house again with planes….”With difficulty, I entered the apartment. Inside, I saw the three men still living, but they were under the rubble.”

Majdi al-Abed Ahmed Abed Rabbo located his wife and children after the IDF released him. His home was totally destroyed by military bulldozers, and he’s deeply distressed. Numerous other examples are similar to his account – human shields illegally used by IDF soldiers in violation of international law and Israel’s High Court ruling.

Conclusions

The above cases are examples of customary Israeli practice in gross violation of international law and Israel’s High Court ruling. They endanger civilian lives and cause “long-lasting psychological trauma.”

IHL considers using civilian human shields a war crime and when used systematically against non-combatants a crime against humanity. It’s essential to hold parties guilty of these crimes accountable as the way to stop this heinous practice.

Al Mezan condemns Israel’s disregard for the law and says that “the continued failure of the international community to fulfill its obligations and its silence on Israeli violations encourages” similar acts in the future – by Israel and others engaged in this outrageous practice.

Source: Global Research