Razing Rafah

Razing Rafah PDF Author: Fred Abrahams
Publisher: Human Rights Watch
ISBN:
Category : Arab-Israeli conflict
Languages : en
Pages : 150

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Book Description
This report show, most of the destruction in Rafah occurred along the Israel-controlled border between the Gaza Strip and Egypt. During regular nighttime raids and with little or no warning, Israel forces used armored caterpillar D9 bulldozers to raze blocks of homes at the edge of the camp, incrementally expanding a "buffer zone" that is currently up to three hundred meters wide. The pattern of destruction strongly suggests that Israeli forces demolished homes wholesale, regardless of whether they posed a specific threat, in violation of international law. In most cases Human Rights Watch found the destruction carried out in the absence of military necessity.

Razing Rafah

Razing Rafah PDF Author: Fred Abrahams
Publisher: Human Rights Watch
ISBN:
Category : Arab-Israeli conflict
Languages : en
Pages : 150

Get Book Here

Book Description
This report show, most of the destruction in Rafah occurred along the Israel-controlled border between the Gaza Strip and Egypt. During regular nighttime raids and with little or no warning, Israel forces used armored caterpillar D9 bulldozers to raze blocks of homes at the edge of the camp, incrementally expanding a "buffer zone" that is currently up to three hundred meters wide. The pattern of destruction strongly suggests that Israeli forces demolished homes wholesale, regardless of whether they posed a specific threat, in violation of international law. In most cases Human Rights Watch found the destruction carried out in the absence of military necessity.

Israel's Military Operations in Gaza

Israel's Military Operations in Gaza PDF Author: Marouf Hasian Jr
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317298624
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 261

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Book Description
Civilians in Gaza and Israel are caught up in complex, violent situations that have overstepped conventional battle lines. Both sides of the conflict have found ways to legitimate the use of violence, and continually swap accusations of violations of domestic and international humanitarian laws. Israel’s Military Operations in Gaza provides an ideological critique of the legal, military, and social media texts that have been used to legitimate historical incursions into the Gaza, with special focus on Operation Protective Edge. It argues that both the Palestinians and the Israelis have deployed various forms of ‘telegenic’ warfare. They have each used argumentative rhetorics based on competing interpretations of events, and are locked in a battle to convince international audiences and domestic constituencies of the righteousness of their causes. This critical genealogical study analyses a range of texts and images, from selfies circulated near the Gaza border to judicial opinions produced by the High Court of Israel. With its multidisciplinary approach and original analysis of the Israel/Gaza situation, this book will be of interest to students and scholars of Middle East studies and the Arab-Israeli conflict, as well as security studies and communication studies.

Beyond Chutzpah

Beyond Chutzpah PDF Author: Norman G. Finkelstein
Publisher: Verso Books
ISBN: 178960379X
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 391

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Book Description
In Beyond Chutzpah, Norman Finkelstein moves from an iconoclastic interrogation of the new anti-Semitism to a meticulously researched expos of the corruption of scholarship on the Israel-Palestine conflict, especially in the work of Alan Dershowitz. Pointing to a consensus among historians and human rights organizations on the factual record, Finkelstein argues that so much controversy continues to swirl around the conflict because apologists for Israel contrive it. This paperback edition includes a new preface examining recent developments in the Israel-Palestine conflict and the misuse of anti-semitism, and a new chapter analysing the controversy surrounding Israel's construction of the West Bank wall.

Underground Warfare

Underground Warfare PDF Author: Daphné Richemond-Barak
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190457244
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 297

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Book Description
Underground warfare, a tactic of yesteryear, has re-emerged as a global and rapidly diffusing threat. This book is the first of its kind to examine tunnel warfare in a systematic and comprehensive way, addressing the legal issues while keeping in mind operational and strategic challenges. Like many other aspects of contemporary warfare, the renewed use of the subterranean in armed conflict presents a challenge for democracies wishing to abide by the law. To Dr. Richemond-Barak, this challenge has not only been under-explored, it is also largely underestimated by the community of states, security experts, and public opinion. She analyzes traditional concepts of the laws of war as they relate to tunnels and underground operations, contemplating questions such as whether tunnels constitute legitimate targets, the assessment of proportionality in anti-tunnel operations, and the availability of advanced warning in this complex terrain. She also identifies issues that are unique to underground warfare, including those that arise when cross-border tunnels burrow under a state's own civilian infrastructure.

Hamas Contained

Hamas Contained PDF Author: Tareq Baconi
Publisher: Stanford University Press
ISBN: 1503605817
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 456

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Book Description
“Judicious and impartial, this important work adds nuance to the portrait of one of the Middle East's most divisive players” (Publishers Weekly). Hamas is a multifaceted liberation organization that rules Gaza and the lives of the two million Palestinians who live there. Demonized as a terrorist group in media and policy debates, it has been subjected to accusations and assumptions that have helped justify extreme military action in the region. In Hamas Contained, Tareq Baconi offers the first history of the group on its own terms. Drawing on interviews with organization leaders, as well as publications from the group, Baconi maps Hamas’s thirty-year transition from fringe resistance to governance. Questioning the conventional understanding of Hamas, he shows how the movement's ideology ultimately threatens the Palestinian struggle and, inadvertently, its own legitimacy. Baconi demonstrates how Hamas's armed struggle has failed in the face of a relentless occupation, and he argues that Israel's approach of managing rather than resolving the conflict has neutralized Hamas’s demand for Palestinian sovereignty. This dynamic has perpetuated a deadlock characterized by its brutality—and one that has led to the collective punishment of millions of Palestinian civilians.

Handbook on Human Security, Borders and Migration

Handbook on Human Security, Borders and Migration PDF Author: Natalia Ribas-Mateos
Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing
ISBN: 1839108908
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 456

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Book Description
Drawing on the concept of the ‘politics of compassion’, this Handbook interrogates the political, geopolitical, social and anthropological processes which produce and govern borders and give rise to contemporary border violence.

Sinai

Sinai PDF Author: Mohannad Sabry
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 9774167287
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 321

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Book Description
The Sinai peninsula holds a unique strategic and political significance for Egypt and its neighbors. Enclosed by the Suez Canal and bordering Gaza and Israel, Egypt's rugged eastern province has been the cornerstone of the Egyptian-Israeli peace accords, yet its internal politics and security have remained largely under media blackout. While the international press descended on the capital Cairo in January 2011, Sinai's armed rebellion was largely ignored. The regime lost control of the peninsula in a matter of days and, since then, unprecedented chaos has reigned. In this crucial analysis, Mohannad Sabry argues that Egypt's shortsighted security approach has continually proven to be a failure.

The 51 Day War

The 51 Day War PDF Author: Max Blumenthal
Publisher: Bold Type Books
ISBN: 1568585128
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 273

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Book Description
On July 8, 2014, Israel launched air strikes on Hamas-controlled Gaza, followed by a ground invasion. The ensuing fifty-one days of war left more than 2,200 people dead, the vast majority of whom were Palestinian civilians, including over 500 children. During the assault, at least 10,000 homes were destroyed and, according to the United Nations, nearly 300,000 Palestinians were displaced. Max Blumenthal was in Gaza and throughout Israel-Palestine during what he argues was an entirely avoidable catastrophe. In this explosive work of intimate reportage, Blumenthal reveals the harrowing conditions and cynical deceptions that led to the ruinous war -- and tells the human stories. Blumenthal brings the battles in Gaza to life, detailing the ferocious clashes that took place when Israel's military invaded the besieged strip. He radically shifts the discussion around a number of highly contentious issues: the use of civilians as human shields by Israeli forces, the arbitrary targeting of Palestinian civilians, and the radicalization of Israeli public officials and top military personnel. Amid the rubble of Gaza's border regions, Blumenthal recorded the testimonies from scores of residents, documenting potential war crimes committed by the Israeli armed forces while carefully examining the military doctrine that led to them. More than a chronicle of war and devastation, The 51 Day War is an urgent warning that the aftermath of the conflict has made another military assault on Gaza almost inevitable. And while the people of Gaza will once again prove their resilience, the world can no longer just stand aside and watch.

The Least of All Possible Evils

The Least of All Possible Evils PDF Author: Eyal Weizman
Publisher: Verso Books
ISBN: 1781684324
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 211

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Book Description
The principle of the 'lesser evil'-the acceptability of pursuing one exceptional course of action in order to prevent a greater injustice-has long been a cornerstone of Western ethical philosophy. From its roots in classical ethics and Christian theology, to Hannah Arendt's exploration of the work of the Jewish Councils during the Nazi regime, Weizman explores its development in three key transformations of the problem: the defining intervention of Mdecins Sans Frontires in mid-1980s Ethiopia; the separation wall in Israel-Palestine; and international and human rights law in Bosnia, Gaza and Iraq. Drawing on a wealth of new research, Weizman charts the latest manifestation of this age-old idea. In doing so he shows how military and political intervention acquired a new 'humanitarian' acceptability and legality in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries.

A History of the Laws of War: Volume 2

A History of the Laws of War: Volume 2 PDF Author: Alexander Gillespie
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1847318622
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 324

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Book Description
This unique new work of reference traces the origins of the modern laws of warfare from the earliest times to the present day. Relying on written records from as far back as 2400 BCE, and using sources ranging from the Bible to Security Council Resolutions, the author pieces together the history of a subject which is almost as old as civilisation itself. The author shows that as long as humanity has been waging wars it has also been trying to find ways of legitimising different forms of combatants and ascribing rules to them, protecting civilians who are either inadvertently or intentionally caught up between them, and controlling the use of particular classes of weapons that may be used in times of conflict. Thus it is that this work is divided into three substantial parts: Volume 1 on the laws affecting combatants and captives; Volume 2 on civilians; and Volume 3 on the law of arms control. This second book on civilians examines four different topics. The first topic deals with the targetting of civilians in times of war. This discussion is one which has been largely governed by the developments of technologies which have allowed projectiles to be discharged over ever greater areas, and attempts to prevent their indiscriminate utilisation have struggled to keep pace. The second topic concerns the destruction of the natural environment, with particular regard to the utilisation of starvation as a method of warfare, and unlike the first topic, this one has rarely changed over thousands of years, although contemporary practices are beginning to represent a clear break from tradition. The third topic is concerned with the long-standing problems of civilians under the occupation of opposing military forces, where the practices of genocide, collective punishments and/or reprisals, and rape have occurred. The final topic in this volume is about the theft or destruction of the property of the enemy, in terms of either pillage or the intentional devastation of the cultural property of the opposition. As a work of reference this set of three books is unrivalled, and will be of immense benefit to scholars and practitioners researching and advising on the laws of warfare. It also tells a story which throws fascinating new light on the history of international law and on the history of warfare itself.