IMPORTANT QUESTIONS REMAIN ABOUT MISSING, POSSIBLY EXECUTED, GAZANS

A report in Ha’aretz today notes that during their recent onslaught into the Gaza that the Israelis had captured some 20 Hamas fighters. However, Palestinian families in the Gaza have asked the International Red Cross (IRC) to locate some 115 Palestinians that went missing during the Israeli invasion.

During the carnage, Qaddoura Fears, head of the Palestine Prisoners Society, had expressed fears that Palestinian prisoners were being executed after being captured. With the discrepancy between the number of Palestinians the Israelis say they have captured and the number that the IRC report missing, even assuming that some of those reported missing may be have been lost under rubble that has not yet been cleared, there is still a large number of people that will likely end up being totally unaccounted for even after all the dead have been recovered from the devastation.

As I have mentioned on this blog elsewhere, summararily executing prisoners on the spot just after surrender is one thing even when done spontaneously by young frightened and frustrated soldiers is in itself a heinous crime but to execute prisoners after having been captured, sent back behind the lines and interrogated is a crime that goes all the way to the top of at least the military and more than likely to the politicians as well.

The combination of Qaddoura Fears qualms during the war about the possibility that Palestinian prisoners are being executed and the emergence of the fact that so many Palestinians are unaccounted for should be ringing alarm bells in the ears of those at the UN who are investigating Israeli warcrimes.

These missing Palestinians must be accounted for. Theirs names should be published and anyone knowing anything about their whereabouts should be encouraged to come forward.