Editorial Note: The following news reports are summaries from original sources. They may also include corrections of Arabic names and political terminology. Comments are in parentheses.

 

American Weapons Used to Kill Palestinians, US Complicit in Israeli Crimes, Report 

Press TV, Sun Mar 11, 2012 5:37PM GMT

With the same amount of money that the United States gives each year to fund weapons for Israel, the federal government could instead fund affordable housing vouchers for 350,000 low-income families, or green jobs training for 500,000 unemployed workers, pr early reading programs for 900,000 at-risk students, or primary health care to 24 million people without insurance.”

American Report

A recent policy paper published by the US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation brings to light a number of cases in which weapons and ammunition produced by and financed by the United States over the past decade have been used by Israel to kill the defenseless Palestinians.

“US military aid to Israel is a policy that is running on autopilot and must be reconsidered,” Josh Ruebner, the national advocacy director of the Washington-based organization and author of the policy paper, said on March 5.

Ruebner added, “US weapons provided to Israel at taxpayer expense make the US complicit in Israel’s human rights abuses of Palestinians living under Israel’s 44-year military occupation of the West Bank, East al-Quds (Jerusalem), and Gaza Strip and defeat US foreign policy objectives of halting Israeli settlement expansion, ending Israeli military occupation, and establishing a just and lasting Israeli-Palestinian peace.”

Between the years 2000 and 2009, the United States transferred “more than 670 million weapons, rounds of ammunition, and related equipment,” according to the report.

During the same period, “Israel killed at least 2,696 unarmed Palestinians, including 1,128 children, often with US weapons in violation of the Foreign Assistance Act and Arms Export Control Act.”

The Foreign Assistance Act, signed into law in 1961, stipulates that “no security assistance may be provided to any country the government of which engages in a consistent pattern of gross violation of internationally recognized human rights.”

This comes as the official inquiries and investigations into US military aid to Israel over recent decades have been met with growing resistance from groups both within and outside of the US government.

Although more expensive weapons systems such as tanks and aircraft make up the bulk of purchasing contracts between Israel and the American manufactures, small arms and ammunition purchases account for the largest number of deaths.

The report adds that Israeli soldiers load some of their guns with high-velocity tear gas canisters and rubber-coated bullets manufactured in the United States - a frequent culprit in death throughout the occupied Palestinian territories.

“From fiscal year 2000 to 2009, the State Department licensed - and US taxpayers funded - the delivery of more than 595,000 tear gas canisters and other ‘riot control’ equipment to the Israeli military, valued at more than 20.5 million dollars,” according to the report.

In a 2007 memorandum of understanding, Washington pledged 30 billion dollars in military assistance to Tel Aviv between 2009 and 2018 - a 25-percent increase in average annual military aid over previous years. Israel will receive roughly 3.1 billion dollars in US military aid for fiscal year 2012.

“With the same amount of money that the United States gives each year to fund weapons for Israel, the federal government could instead fund affordable housing vouchers for 350,000 low-income families, or green jobs training for 500,000 unemployed workers, pr early reading programs for 900,000 at-risk students, or primary health care to 24 million people without insurance,” the report pointed out.

The report comes as eighteen Palestinians have been killed in Israeli airstrikes on the besieged Gaza Strip since last Friday.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Sunday the Tel Aviv regime will continue airstrikes against the besieged Gaza Strip “as long as necessary.”

MP/PKH/HGH/IS

Israeli airstrikes kill 18 Palestinians in three days

Press TV, March 11, 2012. Sun Mar 11, 2012 12:36PM GMT

Eighteen Palestinians have been killed in Israeli airstrikes on the besieged Gaza Strip since Friday.

A 12-year-old child and a 52-year-old man were killed in four Israeli airstrikes on Gaza City early on Sunday.

The latest round of Israeli attacks has brought the Palestinian death toll to 18 since Friday.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Sunday the Tel Aviv regime will continue airstrikes against Gaza “as long as necessary.”

More than 1,400 Palestinians were killed during the December 2008-January 2009 Israeli war against Gaza.

Gaza residents still live in what is known to be the “world's largest open-air prison” as Israel remains in full control of the airspace, territorial waters and border crossings of the Palestinian land.

Israel attacks Gaza to test waters in Egypt: Analyst

Press TV, Sun Mar 11, 2012 11:3AM GMT Share |

 

The Israeli regime has conducted its recent wave of military attacks against the Gaza Strip partly in an attempt to gauge the reaction of post-revolution Egypt, a political analyst tells Press TV.

“I believe the Israelis are mainly testing waters. They are going with an airstrike on Gaza and they want to see the reaction mainly from the Arabs and from Egypt specifically,” said Bashar Zeedan, a Palestinian activist and journalist.

“They do not have a green card like in the days of [former Egyptian dictator Hosni] Mubarak and they want to see how far they can go,” he pointed out.

Since Egypt’s revolution in January 2011, which led to the ouster of Mubarak, anti-US and Israeli sentiments have intensified.

Egypt was the first Arab country to sign a peace treaty with Tel Aviv in 1979, but the situation has drastically changed since Egypt’s February 2011 revolution.

Zeedan also noted that Tel Aviv goes ahead with its airstrikes on the Gaza Strip in an attempt “to get those Palestinians to some sort of desperation level because the Gaza strip ironically is the only Palestinian land that was liberated by resistance.”

Over the past two days, the Tel Aviv regime has intensified its attacks on the Gaza Strip, killing at least 16 Palestinians and wounding 30 more.

Israeli Minister of Military Affairs Ehud Barak reiterated that Israeli troops will continue their attacks on the coastal strip.

The Israeli military frequently bombs the Gaza Strip, claiming the attacks are carried out as defensive measures.

However, disproportionate force is always employed by the Israeli regime against the impoverished Palestinian population in violation of the international law, as civilians are often indiscriminately killed or injured.

ASH/MB