By Kathryn Maureen Ryan
Impunity Watch, Managing Editor

GAZA CITY, Gaza – Israeli tanks entered Gaza after the Israeli military launched a massive ground operation into Gaza late Thursday, calling an extra 18,000 reservists into the conflict with Hamas. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon reportedly ordered the assault to destroy tunnels moving from the Gaza strip into Israel Proper. Tunnels connecting Israel and Gaza as well as Egypt have served as critical supply chains, not only for Hamas militants but also for critical civilian supplies including fuel. The ground assault represents as a major escalation in the ten-day offensive that has already killed more than 230 Palestinians, including the shocking killing of four civilian boys on a Gaza beach on Wednesday.

The offensive began after a group of gunmen reportedly attempted to enter Israel through a tunnel originating in Gaza. The Israeli army said eight of the 13 attackers were killed, and Hamas claimed responsibility for the operation. The Israeli military said the operation “will deal significant damage to the infrastructure of Hamas and other terrorist organizations in the Gaza Strip.” “We have hit Hamas hard, and we will continue to hit Hamas hard,” the Israel Defense Forces tweeted.

Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum said that “the beginning of the Israeli ground invasion of Gaza is a dangerous step with unknown consequences. Israel will pay a heavy price for it. “Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri said of the offensive; “It does not scare the Hamas leaders or the Palestinian people. We warn Netanyahu of the dreadful consequences of such a foolish act.”

The escalation came shortly after a five-hour “humanitarian ceasefire” requested by the United Nations, aimed at giving residents of Gaza a chance to leave their homes for necessities after days of Israli bombardments. Both sides of the conflict largely stopped firing, and people were able to venture out to markets, grocers and banks, which opened for the first time in more than a week.

The ground operation comes just a day after Four young boys were killed during an Israeli strike while playing at Gaza beach on Wednesday, witnesses say, a fifth boy was injured in the attack and is in critical condition. The blasts that killed the boys struck near a hotel where several members of the foreign media are staying; several journalist witnessed the incident. The boys, two brothers and two cousins, were between the ages of 9 and 11.

Israli spokesmen Mark Regev said the results of a preliminary investigation suggests the deaths were the result of a “a tragic misidentification of the target.” However, A Hamas official called the killings a “war crime.” Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zhuri said “those children were not firing rockets, they were just playing.”

According to a report by Human Rights watch several Israeli airstrikes have targeted civilian structures and other non-military targets.  Israeli attacks in Gaza since July 7, 2014 have destroyed 1,255 homes and displaced at least 7,500 people.

“Israel’s rhetoric is all about precision attacks but attacks with no military target and many civilian deaths can hardly be considered precise,” said Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East director at Human Rights Watch. “Recent documented cases in Gaza sadly fit Israel’s long record of unlawful airstrikes with high civilian casualties.” Kenneth Roth, executive director of Human Rights Watch, said Israeli bombs hit Wafa Hospital in Gaza while four patients were inside. Human Rights Watch has called on Israeli to stop targeting Civilian populations and infrastructure; weather the targeting of these areas in intentional or reckless.

For more information:

Al Jazeera – Israel Launches Gaza Ground Invasion – 17 July 2014

CNN International – Israel Launches Ground Operation in Gaza; Hamas Says Israel to ‘Pay a Heavy Price’ – 17 July 2014

CNN International – ‘They Went to the Beach to Play’: Deaths of 4 Children Add to Growing Toll in Gaza Conflict – 17 July 2014

Time Magazine – Israel, Hamas Agree on Short Cease-Fire After Israeli Strike Kills 4 Palestinian Boys – 16 July 2014

Foreign affairs expert Robert Kaplan writes that the total number of Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein’s victims, depending upon how you count, may reach upwards of a million. (Nikola Solic/Associated Press)

Former war crimes prosecutor David Crane says the fullest extent of the brutality of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has yet to be uncovered.

“We were just given a tip-of-the-iceberg look of the horror,” saidCrane, one of the authors of a report into the atrocities committed by the Assad regime.

The report, based on thousands of images of mutilated corpses provided by a former Syrian police photographer, found evidence of 11,000 people tortured and killed in three detention facilities in and aroundDamascus. And with 50 other such facilities unexplored, the total numbers of human casualties could be “astronomical and horrific,” he said.

Stephen Rapp, head of the U.S. State Department’s Office of Global Criminal Justice, recently said that those “images of individuals that have been strangled, and mutilated, gouged, burned, starved” is “solid evidence of the kind of machinery of cruel death that we haven’t seen frankly since the Nazis.”

• Syria defector’s photos depict ‘systematic torture and killing’ of detainees
• Syria war death toll tops 160,000
• Syria’s civil war: key facts, important players

But Crane, who was chief prosecutor at the Sierra Leone war crimes tribunal, also stressed that evaluating the brutality of tyrants, especially through death toll numbers, places the focus in the wrong place.  And it’s why he takes some umbrage with a recent column by foreign affairs author and expert Robert Kaplan comparing Assad to Iraq’s former dictator, Saddam Hussein.

Some tyrants far worse

“Even among tyrants, there are distinctions,” wrote Kaplan, a chief analyst for the geopolitical intelligence firm Stratfor. “Some tyrants are worse than others. It is important that we recognize such distinctions.”

Kaplan said it’s “nonsense” for anyone to suggest that while Saddam was brutal, he wasn’t as bad as Assad.

He notes that while 160,000 have been killed during the three-year conflict in Syria, in the Al-Anfal campaign, Saddam killed an estimated 100,000 civilians alone. Kaplan adds that Saddam likely killed tens of thousands following the first Gulf War, and that he initiated the Iran-Iraq war which killed hundreds of thousands.

“The total number of his victims, depending upon how you count, may reach upwards of a million. Saddam was beyond brutal,” Kaplan wrote. “The word brutal has a generic and insipid ring to it: one that simply does not capture what Iraq was like under his rule. Saddam was in a category all his own, somewhere north of the al-Assads and south of Stalin. That’s who Saddam Hussein was.”

But Crane said that Kaplan’s argument is somewhat misleading.

“I think you need to note what he says but also to really make the point that in reality it’s not about numbers, it’s about human beings,” Crane said.

‘We were just given a tip-of-the-iceberg look of the horror,’ said former war crimes prosecutor David Crane, one of the authors of a report into the atrocities committed by the Bashar al-Assad regime in Syria. (Vahid Salemi/Associated Press)

“The fact that one [of the dictators]

may have had different methodologies or had literally, by numbers, killed more than the other is frankly, in my opinion, not significant and actually can be misleading as to the intent,” Crane said. “And that is the widespread and systematic destruction of their own citizens.”

International law and war crimes expert Cherif Bassiouni said it’s difficult to compare tyrannical regimes and that it’s not just a question of total people killed but also the impact those killings have on a country.

“Every conflict is sui generis, every conflict has its own characteristics, has its own impact. And to try and quantify numbers in a given conflict and try to compare it to another is just totally impossible,” he said.

But Henri Barkey, professor of international relations at Lehigh University in Bethlehem, Penn., agreed with Kaplan, noting a distinction can be made between Saddam and Assad.

“The interesting thing in terms of comparison is that Saddam’s system of brutality was one he instituted from the moment he came to power that was incessant, that was continuous. He ratcheted up when necessary but it was constant,” Barkey said.

‘Derived pleasure from killing’

“Assad, as much as he’s a hoodlum, he’s a two-bit dictator, did not engage in the kind of massive continuous stuff that Saddam has done. Saddam would kill just for the fun and pleasure of killing. He derived pleasure from the killing.”

Assad’s current behaviour, while horrible, is one of someone who is fighting for their life, Barkey said.  But in the case of Saddam, the whole system from the beginning was based on continuous violence against everybody — real and imagined enemies he said.

Barkey said one must also look at the two regimes during peace time and at war. During periods of conflict, both Saddam and Assad were equally brutal, using weapons of mass destruction, and engaging in indiscriminate bombing and shelling. But in non-conflict time, Saddam was far worse than Assad, he said.

Barkey also dismissed Rapp’s comparison of Assad’s regime to the Nazis, saying when the Kurds liberated the police stations and prisons in the north,”they found exactly the same thing — meticulous documentation on anybody who was killed, executed.”

“[Rapp] should know better. The moment you bring this comparison. First of all, you’re cheapening the massive horrors of World War Two. We need to protect that in many respects.

“But factually he’s not right. Saddam and the Khmer Rouge were worse. Even Rwanda, where 800,000 people killed in a matter of weeks, wasn’t there a machinery there too?”

By Kathryn Maureen Ryan
Impunity Watch Managing Editor

Ramallah, Palestine – Just hours after the bodies of three young Israeli settlers were found dead in the West Bank the Israel military launched air-strikes into the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip. The missing settlers, Eyal Yifrah, aged 19, Gilad Shaar, aged 16, and Naftali Fraenkel, a 16-year-old with dual Israeli-American citizenship, disappeared about two weeks ago while they were hitchhiking home from their religious seminary in Kfar Etzion, an illegal settlement in the West Bank. The Israeli army said the bodies were found near Hebron in the Occupied West Bank. “The bodies are currently going through forensic identification. The families of the abducted teens have been notified,” a military spokesperson said.

The disappearance of the three young Israeli men promoted the largest military operations by the Israeli government in the occupied West bank since the end of the Second Intifada. The disappearances of these three young men sparked a massive man-hunt led by the Israel government. In the weeks since the boys went missing more than 400 Palestinians were arrested, thousands of Palestine homes were raided and five people were killed by Israeli gunfire.

The Israeli military launched dozens of air strikes across the Gaza Strip overnight on Monday, only hours after the bodies of three missing Israeli settlers were found. Israeli claimed the strikes were a response to recent and ongoing rocket fire from the Gaza Strip into Israel Proper. However, the attacks came just after Israeli Prime Minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, who blames Hamas for the kidnapping and murder of the Israeli boys, vowed the militant Islamist group Hamas would “pay a heavy price.” The attacks struck 34 locations in the Gaza Strip. The air strikes came as troops on the West Bank killed an 18 year-old Palestinian boy during a raid in Jenin. Israeli authorities claim the teenager was a member of Hamas who threw an explosive device at Israeli soldiers.

Nitzan Alon, commander of the Israeli military said in a statement that “the mission is not over”: “The army, alongside the general security service and the police will continue, for as long as necessary to find the kidnappers, the terrorist from Hamas. We will not rest and not stop until that mission is complete.” Some Israeli politicians have called for harsher steps to be taken against Hamas, some even calling for targeted assassinations. “I don’t know how many leaders of Hamas will remain alive after tonight,” said deputy foreign minister Tzachi Hanegbi.

On Wednesday the body of a young Palestine boy was found in a Jerusalem forest, just days after the discovery of the three young Israel teenagers. The killing raised suspicions that the Arab youth was murdered in a revenge killing carried out by a group of Israelis to avenge the death of the three abducted Jewish teenagers. Residents in Shuafat, an Arab suburb of Jerusalem, said that they had seen a teenager forced into a vehicle outside a supermarket on Tuesday night. They identified the boy as Mohammed Abu Khudair, aged 16.

Following the strikes The United Nations Human Rights office called on all Israelis and Palestinians to exercise “maximum restraint” as the tension across Israel and occupied Palestinian territory escalated as a result of this tragic incident.

“We reiterate our call for strict adherence to international law by all relevant actors to avoid further loss of life, injuries and negative impact on human rights,” The United Nations Human Rights spokesperson, Ravina Shamdasani, said in Geneva. “We urge all parties to refrain from punishing individuals for offences they have not personally committed or by imposing collective penalties.”

For more information please see:

Reuters – Palestinian Teen Killed In Possible Revenge Attack – 2 June 2014

Al Jazeera – Israel Bombs Gaza after Settlers Found Killed – 1 June 2014

The Guardian – Israeli Jets Pound Gaza As Netanyahu Blames Hamas for Teenagers’ Deaths – 1 June 2014

Al Jazeera – Bodies of Missing Settlers Found in West Bank – 30 June 2014

By Kathryn Maureen Ryan
Impunity Watch Reporter, Managing Editor

Cairo, Egypt – Three journalists working for Al Jazeera English were convicted of aiding the Muslim Brotherhood in an Egyptian court on Monday. The journalists, Peter Greste, Mohamed Fahmy and Baher Mohamed were arrested and had been imprisoned Cairo since December. They had been accused of conspiring with the Muslim Brotherhoods, spreading false news and endangering Egypt’s national security. Charges which the three men have denied. Peter Greste, a former employee of the BBC, and Mohamed Fahmy, a former employee of CNN, were both sentenced to seven years in Prison. Baher Mohamed, a native Egyptian, was sentenced to ten years in prison.

Since the 2013 coup the Egyptian military has cracked down on free speech in Egypt; not only on public decent from pro-Morsi demonstrators but on transparent reporting as well. The France based press freedom advocacy group Reporters Sans Frontières (Reporters without Borders) ranks Egypt 159^th out of 180 countries in its 2014 Press Freedom Index. Press freedom as well as the safety of journalists has severely declined in Egypt since last year. According to Reporters without Borders, A total of six journalists have been killed in Egypt by live rounds since the military coup that removed former Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi from power on 3 July 2013. Most of these reporters were killed while covering pro-Morsi demonstrations. According to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), more than 65 journalists were arrested and detained in Egypt for varying periods of time between 3 July 2013 and 30 April 2014. The conviction of journalists reporting for Al Jazeera, one of the world’s largest and most respected news outlets, has raised awareness to the military government’s crackdown on free speech.

The verdict has sparked outrage from activists, news outlets and press freedom groups around the world, often showing their support for the jailed journalists in Egypt through the Hashtag #freeAJstaff which has gone viral since the reporters were detained last year.

CNN was among the major media outlets to have spoken out against the verdict and in support of press freedom around the globe. “All at CNN are dismayed at today’s unjust sentencing of the Al Jazeera journalists in Egypt,” the network said in a statement. “Freedom of the media must be protected, and journalists must be free to carry out their legitimate work without fear of imprisonment. We stand alongside the journalistic community in calling for the immediate release of these journalists.”

United States Secretary of State John Kerry has spoken out agast the verdict; saying, “today’s conviction and chilling, draconian sentences by the Cairo Criminal Court of three Al Jazeera journalists and fifteen others in a trial that lacked many fundamental norms of due process, is a deeply disturbing set-back to Egypt’s transition. Injustices like these simply cannot stand if Egypt is to move forward in the way that President al-Sisi and Foreign Minister Shoukry told me just yesterday that they aspire to see their country advance.”

As I shared with President al-Sisi during my visit to Cairo, the long term success of Egypt and its people depends on the protection of universal human rights, and a real commitment to embracing the aspirations of the Egyptians for a responsive government. Egyptian society is stronger and sustainable when all of its citizens have a say and a stake in its success. Today’s verdicts fly in the face of the essential role of civil society, a free press, and the real rule of law. I spoke with Foreign Minister Shoukry again today to make very clear our deep concerns about these convictions and sentences.

Kerry, who spoke with newly elected Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi earlier this week said that he and Sisi, who led the coup against the Morsi government, said “frankly discussed these issues and his objectives at the start of his term as President. I call on him to make clear, publicly, his government’s intention to observe Egypt’s commitment to the essential role of civil society, a free press, and the rule of law.”

However the Egyptian President has said that he will not interfere with judicial verdicts. In a televised speech at a military graduation ceremony on Tuesday Sisi said; “we will not interfere in judicial rulings,” he said “we must respect judicial rulings and not criticize them even if others do not understand this.”

For more information please see:

Al Jazeera – Outrage as Egypt Jails Al Jazeera Staff – 24 June 2014

Al Jazeera – Sisi ‘Will not Interfere’ in Court Verdicts – 24 June 2014

CNN – Jailed Al Jazeera Journalists Convicted in Egypt – 24 June 2014

U.S. Department of State Press Release – Conviction of Al Jazeera Journalists – 23 June 2014

By Kathryn Maureen Ryan
Impunity Watch Managing Editor

Fighters from the Islamic State of Iraq and Levant (ISIS) attacked the Kurdish town of Basheer on Tuesday in an attempt by the jihadist group to gain ground in the oil-rich area just south of Kirkuk. Officials from the Kurdish militia, the Peshmerga, said at least three of their soldiers were killed during the fighting. “Basheer is mostly all Shia. So ISIS just came to kill all of them,” a Peshmerga official said of the Sunni group. The attack on the town of Basheer comes just one day after three car bombs exploded in the city of Kirkuk. These events indicate that ISIS has not given up efforts to gain ground in North Iraq despite its simultaneous success in capturing ground to the south as it makes its way towards Baghdad.

Since launching their attack on Iraq by seizing Mosul, Iraq’s second most populous city, last week ISIS fighters have advanced into the heart of Iraq through the Tigris river valley, reportedly killing hundreds of Iraqi troops in mass executions. United Nation’s staff and other sources on the ground in Iraq reported the executions of hundreds of Iraqis following the ISIS takeover of Mosul. The victims included disarmed soldiers swell as religious leaders and other civilians. “Based on corroborated reports from a number of sources, it appears that hundreds of non-combatant men were summarily executed over the past five days, including surrendered or captured soldiers, military conscripts, police and others associated with the Government,” Navi Pillay, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, said.  Pillay stressed that “although the numbers cannot be verified yet, this apparently systematic series of cold-blooded executions, mostly conducted in various locations in the Tikrit area, almost certainly amounts to war crimes.”

ISIS fighters have been joined by other Sunni factions, including former members of the ousted Baath Party and tribal figures, who share widespread anger felt among Iraq’s Sunni minority at perceived oppression by the Shi’ite-led government of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki which has failed to allow appropriate Sunni representation in Iraq’s new government.  Several western countries, including the United States, have urged Prime Minister al-Maliki to reach out to the Sunni population to rebuild national unity as the only way of preventing the disintegration of the country.

According to the Kurdish regional Prime Minister, Nechirvan Barzan, Kurdish Peshmerga forces will not help Iraq’s army retake the city of Mosul from jihadist militants, the head of the Kurdistan Regional Government says. Barzani has said that his “top priority” is to protect KRG-administered areas in the north-east. Over the past week Kurdish Peshmerga fighters have taken control of several towns and cities that were deserted by deserted Iraqi government soldiers when ISIS began to advance into the region. These communities include the city of Kirkuk, which is at the center of a political dispute between the KRG and al- Maliki’s central government in Baghdad.

Barzani also argued that Iraq’s Sunni Arabs should be given their own autonomous zone by the Iraqi government. The Iraqi constitution, which entered into effect after the U.S. led occupation of Iraq, allows for the establishment of semi-autonomous regional governments. However the Iraqi government has made no moves to establish a new regional government since the Constitution entered into effect and the Kurdish region of Iraq remains the only semi-autonomous regional authority in the country.

United States President Barack Obama announced plans to send up to 275 military personnel to bolster the protection of the U.S. embassy in Baghdad. The President is also reportedly considering the opinion of airstrikes against ISIS. President Ob President Obama is also reportedly weighing air strikes. President Obama oversaw the withdrawal of American troops from Iraq, the U.S. combat mission in Iraq officially ended in December 2011 with the final withdraw of combat forces.

For more information please see:

BBC News – Iraq Conflict: Kurds ‘Will Not Help Retake Mosul’ – 17 June 2014

CNN International – Iraq Crisis: ISIS Advances on Baquba as U.S. Moves Firepower to Region – 17 June 2014

International Business Times – ISIS Attacks Near Kirkuk Oil Fields; Kurdish Fighters Vow To Crush Jihadist Group – 17 June 2014

NBC News – Life Under ISIS: Iraqis Return to Mosul, Seeing Militants As Safer Bet – 17 June 2014

United Nations News Centre – UN Condemns Mass Executions in Iraq, Urges Leaders to Prevent Sectarian Reprisal – 16 June 2014