Hamas's Human Shield Strategy

The current Gaza conflict is likely to be remembered as a terrible tragedy. Not Because the IDF has unintentionally killed Palestinian civilians but because Hamas has made the use of human shields a despicable primary military strategy. encouraged by the unforgivable silence of leading international NGOs, Hamas deploys two complementary tactics that mock and debase the humanitarian core of international law: firing hundreds of rocket targeting Israeli population centers (including Jews, Muslims and Christians) and the massive use of Palestinian civilians—including women and children—as human shields.

While Israel makes an effort to fight with accurate surgical air strikes directed against Hamas militant and it's terrorist sites, Hamas is doing the opposite and firing rockets indiscriminately towards Israeli population centers in order to kill as many Israelis as possible.

While Israel using their anti-missile "iron dome" shield to protect their civilians, Hamas does just the opposite and Instead of keeping its citizens out of harm’s way they are using and exploit  the Palestinian civilian population as human shields for its militant and infrastructure.

In the past, it meant putting missile launchers near and inside of schools, hospitals, and mosques as well among civilian homes in the densely populated strip, But as Israel has stepped up its efforts to try and avoid civilian casualties, even as it seeks to silence the terrorist fire, Hamas has also increased its efforts to ensure that as many inhabitants of Gaza as possible are hurt in the fighting.

Why Hamas using they're own civilians as human shield?

Hamas sees the use of human shields as a win-win strategy, since if it deters an Israeli response, its fighters and weapons will be safe, and if Israel does respond, the civilian casualties will be another photo opportunity that can be internationally exploited for propaganda purposes and building popular support playing on anger against Israel.

When Hamas terrorist's fires rockets at Israeli cities they usually do this from densely populated areas using timers or remotely controlled launchers, leaving the terrorists themselves at a safe distance. To protect the launch sites from preemptive strikes by the Israeli Air Force, Hamas sends children to play near the launchers or sets them up near schools, playgrounds, hospitals or mosques.

When the IDF is preparing to attack a civilian area (seemingly civilian structures but used in practice as an armory, Hamas headquarters or a firing position) it takes extensive measures in order to avoid civilian casualties such as using telephone calls and leaflets to warn civillians before striking an area. In some cases, the Israelis fire missile without explosive warhead onto the roof of a building to get Palestinians who gathered there to leave before it strikes the building.

These messages urge civilians to leave the area, and even might spare the lives of terrorists. And what Hamas is doing? – Hamas urges civilians to defend the site with their lives, they're telling them to stay there. Is a government that send citizens to protect with their lives a military site a legitimate government?

Hamas don’t even try to hide the fact that they use civilians as human shield, in fact they're admit it loud and clear: Hamas Interior Ministry said in an on-air TV announcement to Gaza residents this week that Israeli’s warning messages "are designed to weaken our resolve and to sow panic and fear among us, in light of the failures of our enemies. We call on all Gaza residents not to pay attention to these messages and not to leave their homes."

Another example of this was noted, when Hamas’s Al Aqsa TV in Gaza aired the group’s spokesperson, Sami Abu Zuhri, urging the population of the Gaza strip to refuse to heed warnings and to use their bodies to shield Hamas facilities:

"The policy of people confronting the Israeli warplanes with their bare chests in order to protect their homes has proven effective against occupation.  Also, this policy reflects the character of our brave, courageous people. We in Hamas call upon our people to adopt this policy, in order to protect the Palestinian homes."

About The Critics

In the lethal "fog of war," even the most-disciplined, best-intentioned armies errantly kill civilians caught in the crossfire as well as their own soldiers who die from friendly fire (a difficult concept to digest). Does anybody remember the thousands of French civilians killed by the Allies during World War II's Normandy Invasion?

In their current asymmetrical war with Hamas, the Israeli Defense Forces are using cellphone messages, leaflets, and other measures in the attempt to decouple civilians from military targets placed in their midst by the terrorist organization. As former Commander of British Forces in Afghanistan, Col. Richard Kemp said of Israel’s previous operations in Gaza: “the Israeli Defense Forces did more to safeguard the rights of civilians in a combat zone than any other army in the history of warfare.”

As well as The flow of hundreds of trucks loaded with foodstuffs and medicine into Gaza from Israel is a daily routine in order to allow further humanitarian supplies to reach noncombatants.

This Israeli effort is obligatory morally and ethically, but in terms of the reality of today's warfare it is an outstanding effort. No other army had ever acted in the same way towards the enemy's civilians.

Despite the obvious logic, Israel gets nothing but a global diplomatic and media chorus of boos from those who promote human rights but willfully blind to the ultimate outrage against humanitarian international law occurring today in Gaza by the hands of Hamas.

 The Bottom Line

Shields protect honorable combatants in the midst of battle; Iron dome is the modern city wall aims to protect civilians; Human shields? It is the weapon of the most cowardly tyrants who violate every principle of humanitarian international law.

few in the mainstream media find it necessary to critical and report on Hamas crimes – let's say plain and simple: Hamas violates the international law  contrary to all ethical and moral standards of warfare – they claim they are protecting they're civilians but they are their greatest enemy.

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Never again? : Crimes Against Humanity In North Korea

North Korea's leadership is committing systematic and appalling human rights abuses against its own citizens on a scale unparalleled in the modern world, crimes against humanity with strong resemblances to those committed by the Nazis, a United Nations inquiry has concluded.

The UN's commission on human rights in North Korea, which gathered evidence for almost a year, including often harrowing testimony at public hearings worldwide, said there was compelling evidence of torture, execution and arbitrary imprisonment, deliberate starvation and an almost complete lack of free thought and belief.

The chair of the three-strong panel set up by the UN commissioner on human rights has personally written to North Korea's leader, Kim Jong-un, to warn that he could face trial at the international criminal court (ICC) for his personal culpability as head of state and leader of the military.

"The commission wishes to draw your attention that it will therefore recommend that the United Nations refer the situation in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea [the formal name for North Korea] to the international criminal court to render accountable all those, including possibly yourself, who may be responsible for the crimes against humanity," Michael Kirby, an Australian retired judge, wrote to Kim.

At a press conference to launch the report, Kirby said there were "many parallels" between the evidence he had heard and crimes committed by the Nazis and their allies in the second world war. He noted the evidence of one prison camp inmate who said his duties involved burning the bodies of those who had starved to death and using the remains as fertiliser.

"When you see that image in your mind of bodies being burned it does bring back memories of the end of world war two, and the horror and the shame and the shock," Kirby said. "I never thought that in my lifetime it would be part of my duty to bring revelations of a similar kind."

Holding up a copy of the report, Kirby said other nations could not say of North Korea, as happened with the Nazis, that they did not know the extent of the crimes: "Now the international community does know. There will be no excusing a failure of action because we didn't know. It's too long now. The suffering and the tears of the people of North Korea demand action."

Asked how many North Korean leaders and officials could ultimately be held responsible, Kirby said it could reach the hundreds.

The inquiry heard public evidence in Seoul, Tokyo, London and Washington. Among more than 80 witnesses, along with 240 people who gave confidential interviews to avoid reprisals against relatives in North Korea, were escapers from the country's feared prison camps, including one who reported seeing a female prisoner forced to drown her newborn baby because it was presumed to have a Chinese father.

The near-400-page main report concludes there is overwhelming evidence that crimes against humanity have been, and are still being, committed within the hermetic nation.

It says: "These are not mere excesses of the state: they are essential components of a political system that has moved far from the ideals on which it claims to be founded. The gravity, scale and nature of these violations reveal a state that does not have any parallel in the contemporary world."

North Korea refused to participate in the investigation or allow the commission to visit, and immediately rejected the findings, calling them "a product of politicisation of human rights on the part of EU and Japan in alliance with the US hostile policy".

The report recommends that the UN refer the situation in North Korea to the ICC. While North Korea is not a signatory to the treaty that created the ICC, the UN security council can extend the court's remit in exceptional cases.

In practice this would probably be vetoed by China, which has close links with North Korea and maintains a policy of sending back people found to have fled across the border, despite widespread evidence that they face mistreatment and detention on their return. The commission's report heavily criticises China for this, saying the policy appears to breach international laws on refugees.

The report concludes that many of the crimes against humanity stem directly from state policies in a country which, since it was formed from the division of Korea, has been run on a highly individual variant of Stalinist-based self-reliance and centralised dynastic rule. The inquiry found "an almost complete denial of the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion", with citizens brought into an all-encompassing system of indoctrination from childhood.

Perhaps the most chilling section describes the vast network of secret prison camps, known as kwanliso, where hundreds of thousands of North Koreans are believed to have died through starvation, execution or other means. It is estimated that between 80,000 and 120,000 political prisoners are still held, in many cases secretly

The report says: "Their families are not informed of their fate or whereabouts. Persons accused of political crimes therefore become victims of enforced disappearance. Making the suspect disappear is a deliberate feature of the system that serves to instil fear in the population."

Other particularly disturbing parts of the report detail the experiences of women who are interned on their forced return from China when it is believed they could be pregnant from a Chinese man, something which contravenes North Korea notions of racial purity. Aside from the drowning of the newborn baby the panel heard testimony of forced abortions, sometimes using chemicals or beatings, or surgical procedures without anaesthetic.

Other sections of the report cover abuses such as the lack of food. While natural disasters were in part to blame for a famine that killed huge numbers in the 1990s, the report notes that the North Korean state has "used food as a means of control over the population". It adds: "It has prioritised those whom the authorities believe to be crucial in maintaining the regime over those deemed expendable."

The commission also condemns the almost complete lack of freedom of movement for North Koreans both within their country and abroad, the discrimination of the so-called songbun system, where the state politically classifies people based on their birth and family, and the large-scale abduction of people from other countries, mainly Japan and South Korea.

The report says the abuses clearly meet the threshold needed for proof of crimes against humanity in international law. t adds: "The perpetrators enjoy impunity. The Democratic People's Republic of Korea is unwilling to implement its international obligation to prosecute and bring the perpetrators to justice, because those perpetrators act in accordance with state policy."

Asked whether he believed the report would change anything immediately in North Korea, Kirby recalled a UN mission he led in the early 1990s to report on human rights abuses in Cambodia, some years before that country's eventual UN-led tribunal on Khmer Rouge crimes. He said: "Bearing witness, collecting the stories, recording them and putting them there for future use can sometimes bear fruit a little later."

THIS ARTICLE ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED ON "THE GUARDIAN"  AND WAS WRITTEN BY Peter Walker

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If it had happened anywhere else, this would be the world's biggest story

If it had happened anywhere else, this would be the world's biggest story.

More than 230 girls disappeared, captured by members of a brutal terrorist group in the dead of night. Their parents are desperate and anguished, angry that their government is not doing enough. The rest of the world is paying little attention.

The tragedy is unfolding in Nigeria, where members of the ultra-radical Islamist group Boko Haram grabbed the girls, most believed to be between 16 and 18, from their dormitories in the middle of the night in mid-April and took them deep into the jungle. A few dozen of the students managed to escape and tell their story. The others have vanished. (Roughly 200 girls remain missing.)

The latest reports from people living in the forest say Boko Haram fighters are sharing the girls, conducting mass marriages, selling them each for $12. One community elder explained the practice as "a medieval kind of slavery."

While much of the world has been consumed with other stories, notably the missing Malaysian plane, the relatives of the kidnapped girls in the small town of Chibok in northeastern Nigeria have struggled for weeks with no resources to help them. The Nigerian government allayed international concerns when it reported -- incorrectly -- that it had rescued most of the girls. But the girls were still in captivity. Their parents raised money to arrange private expeditions into the jungle. They found villagers who had seen the hostages with heavily armed men.

Relatives are holding street protests to demand more help from the government. With a social media push, including a Twitter#BringBackOurGirls campaign, they are seeking help anywhere they can find it.

Nigerians demand government do more to save abducted girls

It's hard to imagine a more compelling, dramatic, heartbreaking story. And this is not a one-off event. This tragedy is driven by forces that will grow stronger and deadlier if the captors manage to succeed.

I think of these girls as trapped in the rubble of a collapsed building. Their mothers and fathers try to dig them out with their bare hands, while the men who brought down the building vow to blow up others. Everyone else walks by, with barely a second glance.

Perhaps this story sounds remote. But at its heart it is a version of the same conflict that drives the fighting in other parts of the world. These young girls, eager for an education, are caught in the crossfire of the war between Islamic radicalism and modernity. It's the Nigerian version of the same dispute that brought 9/11 to the United States; that brought killings to European, Asian and Middle Eastern cities; the same ideological battle that destroyed the lives of millions of people in Afghanistan; that drives many of the fighters in Syria and elsewhere.

In Nigeria, the dispute includes uniquely local factors, but the objectives of Boko Haram sound eerily familiar.

Boko Haram wants to impose its strict interpretation of Sharia -- Islamic law. It operates mostly in the northern part of Nigeria, a country divided between a Muslim-majority north and a Christian-majority south. Islamic rule is its larger objective, but its top priority, judging from the group's name, explains why it has gone after girls going to school.

Boko Haram, in the local Hausa language, means roughly "Western education is sin."

But women are just the beginning, and Boko Haram goes about its goals not only by kidnapping, but also by slaughtering men and women of all ages and of any religion.

These militants view a modern education as an affront, no matter who receives it. In February, they burst into a student dormitory in the northern state of Yobe, where teenage boys were sleeping after a day of classes. They killed about 30 boys, shooting some, hacking others in their beds, slitting the throats of the ones trying to flee. In July, also in Yobe state, they shot 20 students and their teacher.

The gruesome attacks are not restricted to remote areas. A few weeks ago, a bus bombing in the capital of Abuja killed more than 75 people. Boko Haram took responsibility. It was the deadliest terrorist act in the city's history.

Boko Haram has killed thousands of people since 2009 and has caused a humanitarian crisis with a "devastating impact," causing nearly 300,000 to flee their homes, according to Human Rights Watch.

Nigeria is a resource-rich nation whose people live in grinding poverty. It is also plagued with endemic corruption. That triple combination -- poverty, corruption and resource-wealth -- creates fertile ground for strife and extremism. And the instability in Nigeria sends tremors through a fragile region. Boko Haram keeps hideouts and bases along the border with neighboring countries Cameroon and Chad.

This is an international crisis that requires international help. Is there anything anyone can do? Most definitely.

First, it is urgent that the plight of these girls and their families gain the prominence it so clearly deserves.

Global attention will lead to offers for help, to press for action. Just as the intense focus on the missing Malaysian plane and the lost South Korean ferry prompted other nations to extend a hand, a focus on this ongoing tragedy would have the same effect.

Nigeria's government, with a decidedly mixed record on its response to Boko Haram, will find it difficult to look away if world leaders offer assistance in finding and rescuing the kidnapped girls from Chibok, and another 25 girls also kidnapped by Boko Haram in the town of Konduga a few weeks earlier.

This is an important story, a wrenching human drama, even if it happened in a part of the world where news coverage is very difficult compared with places such as Malaysia, South Korea or Australia. The plight of the Nigerian girls should remain in our thoughts, at the forefront of news coverage and on the agenda of world leaders.

This article originally appeared in CNN And written by Frida Ghitis

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