RAMALLAH, April 18 (JMCC) - Nearly a year and a half after the end of
Operation Cast Lead in Gaza, a member of the
Israeli Knesset is urging the publication of an article by renowned investigative journalist Uri Blau, which reveals certain preparations for the military assault. The Israeli newspaper Haaretz was forbidden from publishing the article days before the military operation began.
In a highly unusual move, according to reports in the Israeli media, the
army ordered the Haaretz newspaper to destroy all copies of an edition
that included Blau’s investigation after it had already gone to press
and been passed by the military censor. The article was never
republished.
Haneen Zoubi, an MP who previously headed an Israeli
media-monitoring organization, said it was “outrageous” that the
suppressed report was still secret so long after the Gaza attack. She is
to table a parliamentary question to Ehud Barak, the defense minister,
today demanding to know why the army suppressed the article and what is
preventing its publication now. Barak must respond within 21 days.
She said publication of the article was important
both because Israel had been widely criticized for killing many hundreds
of civilians in its three-week assault on Gaza, and because subsequent
reports suggested that Israeli commanders sought legal advice months
before the operation to manipulate the accepted definitions of
international law to make it easier to target civilians...
Blau is now caught up in one of the biggest scandals in Israeli history after he published articles revealing Israeli military secrets in which the military was involved in extrajudicial killings of Palestinians, in violation of Israeli court rulings. Blau is currently in hiding in London.
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