On a Red Cross mission of mercy when Israeli air force came calling

[Violet_Crumble]

by Robert Fisk
July 28, 2006

07/28/06 "The Independent" -- -- It was supposed to be a routine trip across the Lebanese killing fields for the brave men and women of the International Red Cross. Sylvie Thoral was the "team leader" of our two vehicles, a 38-year-old Frenchwoman with dark brown hair and eyes like steel. The Israelis had been informed and had given what the ICRC likes to call its "green light" to the route. And, of course, we almost died.

Trusting the Israeli army and air force, which are breaking the Geneva Conventions almost every day, is a dodgy business.

Their planes have already attacked - against all the conventions - the civil defence headquarters in Tyre, killing 20 refugees. They have twice attacked truckloads of refugees whom they themselves had ordered from their villages.

They have already attacked two Lebanese Red Cross ambulances in Qana, killing two of the three wounded patients inside and injuring all the crew - a clear and apparently deliberate breach of Chapter IV, Article 24 of the 1949 Geneva Conventions.

But the ICRC must put its trust in the Israeli military and so off we sped from southern Lebanon for Jezzine to the sound of gunfire, under the crumbling battlements of the crusader castle at Beaufort, through the ghostly, shattered streets of Nabatiyeh, bomb craters and crushed buildings on each side of us.

http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=107&ItemID=10660

[IntiRaymi]

1. I don't think that Israel is a signatory on the Geneva Conventions

http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/History/Human_Rights/geneva.html

"Since 1997 the Arab group at the United Nations has been trying to invoke the Fourth Geneva Convention against Israel, in regard to its settlements in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, and in particular at Har Homa in Jerusalem. The UN General Assembly has adopted a number of non-binding resolutions condemning Israeli settlements, and calling for a convening of the signatory nations of the Fourth Geneva Convention. In February 1999, the GA adopted a resolution calling for a special UN session to be held on July 15, 1999, in Geneva to examine "persistent violations" by Israel.

Israel rejects the interpretation of the Fourth Geneva Convention applying it to Israeli settlements in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, stating that those territories were captured in 1967 as a result of a defensive war against countries which had illegally occupied them since 1948."


"ADL have vigorously opposed convening the Fourth Geneva Convention in regard to Israeli settlements arguing that it could dangerously politicize the international legitimacy and high standings of the Geneva Conventions. It could open a Pandora’s box across the globe haphazardly applying the convention to a plethora of nations. Furthermore, it would give credence to the Palestinian tactic of using the international community to air grievances regarding the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, and thereby threatens the peace process itself."

Emphasis obviously mine.
Keep in mind that Geneva Conventions state a number of things, all of which can be boiled down to treating non-combatants decently (not killing them, for you pro-israel zealots), and others concerning prisoners of war, etc.
Basically, trying to keep things humane.