UK military covered up war crimes in Afghanistan, whistleblower tells inquiry
Special forces members did not sign up to 'shoot toddlers' and commit 'random killings', former senior officer says
British special forces in Afghanistan appeared to commit war crimes by executing suspects, a former senior British officer has told a public inquiry.
Despite widespread knowledge in the chain of command, nothing was done, the whistleblower claimed. Britain's Ministry of Defence ordered the inquiry after a BBC TV documentary reported that soldiers from the elite Special Air Service (SAS) killed 54 people in suspicious circumstances during the war in Afghanistan more than a decade ago.
The investigation is examining night-time raids by British forces from mid-2010 to mid-2013, when troops were part of a US-led coalition fighting against the Taliban and other militant groups.
The whistleblower, who is known to the inquiry only as N1466, said the alleged murder of civilians by UK special forces in the country is “not special, it’s not elite, it’s not what we stand for”. During his evidence, which was given behind closed doors, the witness, who was assistant chief of staff for operations in the UK special forces headquarters, said “we didn’t join [the special forces] for this sort of behaviour … toddlers to get shot in their beds or random killing”.
He appeared to refer to the children of Hussain Uzbakzai and his wife Ruqquia Haleem, who are alleged to have been shot while asleep in their beds during a night-time operation in 2012 in the village of Shesh Aba, in Afghanistan's southern Nimruz province......................
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https://www.middleeasteye.net/live/live-israel-dropped-153-tonnes-bombs-gaza-sunday
Israeli soldiers kill unarmed Palestinians as they surrender in Jenin
- Israeli forces have kept Tubas under siege for a second straight day as large-scale military operations continue across the northern occupied West Bank. On Thursday, they arrested a journalist and a photographer in the city.
- Israeli security forces shot two Palestinian men on Thursday who appeared to be surrendering and unarmed during a raid in Jenin, Palestine TV news footage showed.
- Mohammed Ibrahim, 16, a US citizen living in the occupied West Bank, was released by Israeli authorities on Thursday, in a move timed to coincide with the American Thanksgiving holiday. The child had been detained for more than nine months without charge.
- A group of Israeli settlers torched a mosque in Biddya, a village in the northern occupied West Bank.
- Germany, Italy, France, and Britain called on Israel to abide by international law and protect Palestinians in the occupied West Bank in a joint statement released Thursday.
- Israel is still waging a genocide against Palestinians in Gaza despite the fact that a ceasefire in the enclave is entering its second month and all living Israeli captives have been released, Amnesty International has said.
- Roughly half of Gaza’s emergency services have shut down as severe fuel shortages paralyze rescue, firefighting and evacuation work, Al Jazeera reported.
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https://newleftreview.org/sidecar/posts/grown-up-politics?pc=1720
Grown-Up Politics
‘I’m sorry if this is a graphic thing to say, but when I’m trying to make arguments in favour of, you know, for Israel, I realise I’m talking through a wall of dead children.’ These are not the words of someone having a crisis of conscience, realising that it is no longer possible to defend the indefensible. They were spoken earlier this month by Sarah Hurwitz, a former speech writer for the Obamas and author of As a Jew: Reclaiming Our Story from Those Who Blame, Shame and Try to Erase Us (2025). What troubled Hurwitz was not the dead children but the fact that living children might see them. And the problem with that, she made clear, was not that they might be distressed but that they might have their minds turned against the state of Israel: the sight of dead Palestinians was arousing emotions that get in the way of mature, rational thought. The solution? Simple: take away their smart phones. Stressing the need to shield Jewish children in particular from seeing the ‘carnage’ wreaked by a state that claims to act in their names, Hurwitz urged that ‘Jewish day schools should absolutely say: no child owns a smart phone until senior year. We’ve got to give our kids’ brains a chance, and their mental health a chance, before they start getting really warped.’
The idea that being appalled by a genocide is symptomatic of a ‘warped’ mind – whereas casually referring to tens of thousands of dead children as an obstacle to one’s efforts to proselytise on behalf of the state that killed them is not – is about as warped as it gets. But by this stage, it is not easy to be shocked. We are accustomed to the dehumanising, openly eliminationist rhetoric of Israeli politicians. Besides, such utterances are nothing new: recall in 2014, when soon-to-be justice minister Ayelet Shaked posted an article on social media calling for the killing of the mothers of Palestinian martyrs and the destruction of their homes lest they raise more ‘little snakes’.
In a sense, though, Hurwitz’s comment is more disturbing than the overtly demonising language of Netanyahu, who described Palestinians as ‘children of darkness’, or Gallant, who called Gazans ‘human animals’. Hurwitz’s words are cooler, more banal................
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By Seham Tantesh, Julian Borger and Emma Graham=Harrison
‘Bloodshed was supposed to stop’: no sign of normal life as Gaza’s killing and misery grind on
The term ceasefire ‘risks creating a dangerous illusion life is returning to normal’ for Palestinians squeezed into the remaining 42% of their land behind Israel’s ‘yellow line’
When Jumaa and Fadi Abu Assi went to look for firewood their parents thought they would be safe. They were just young boys, aged nine and 10 and, after all, a ceasefire had been declared in Gaza.
Their mother, Hala Abu Assi, was making tea in the family’s tent in Khan Younis when she heard an explosion, a missile fired by an Israeli drone. She ran to the scene – but it was too late.
Since the US-brokered ceasefire was announced on 10 October, Israeli forces have killed more than 360 Palestinians in Gaza; according to a UN official, at least 70 are children – like Jumaa and Fadi................
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