The Independent reports:
"Archbishop Desmond Tutu walked from his car and, his head lowered, paused for a moment's silent prayer or reflection at the alley where so many of the Athamneh family had been killed.
Then he stepped forward to the warm embrace of a tearful Saad Athamneh, 55, who lost three of his sons, all of them fathers, 18 months ago. "The siege is continuing," he told the venerable South African in a short speech of welcome outside the family home. "The US is controlling the Middle East. The Israelis killed my children while I was praying. Please come in and see what happened."
The Archbishop was visiting the still ravaged house in this northern Gaza town 17 months later than he had intended. He was appointed by the UN Human Rights Council to investigate the Israeli shelling that killed 21 civilians – 18 of them Athamneh family members – on 8 November 2006."
Suffering, of a different kind, and one man taking on a mighty war-machine - shades of David and Goliath? - emerges from this piece from BBC News:
"Eight months after his nine-year-old son died in a shooting incident involving private security guards from the US firm Blackwater, the boy’s father has called for an official apology and admission of guilt from the company, rather than compensation.
“I am ready to sign a deal [with Blackwater] in exchange for an admission of the crime and an apology,” Mohammed Hafidh Abdul-Razzaq, a car spare-parts dealer from Baghdad, told the BBC.
“This is important for me, morally, for my family and my tribe.”
He said he had conveyed the message to one of the company’s officials when they met in the Iraqi capital; but, he said, he was told that an admission would not be possible “for legal reasons”.
On Tuesday, Mr Abdul-Razzaq was one of three Iraqis to give evidence to a closed-door session of a federal grand jury in Washington investigating the shooting on 16 September, 2007, in which 17 Iraqi civilians died, including Mr Abdul-Razzaq’s son Ali.
It was one of the most serious incidents involving private security firms in Iraq."
Read on here.
"Archbishop Desmond Tutu walked from his car and, his head lowered, paused for a moment's silent prayer or reflection at the alley where so many of the Athamneh family had been killed.
Then he stepped forward to the warm embrace of a tearful Saad Athamneh, 55, who lost three of his sons, all of them fathers, 18 months ago. "The siege is continuing," he told the venerable South African in a short speech of welcome outside the family home. "The US is controlling the Middle East. The Israelis killed my children while I was praying. Please come in and see what happened."
The Archbishop was visiting the still ravaged house in this northern Gaza town 17 months later than he had intended. He was appointed by the UN Human Rights Council to investigate the Israeli shelling that killed 21 civilians – 18 of them Athamneh family members – on 8 November 2006."
Suffering, of a different kind, and one man taking on a mighty war-machine - shades of David and Goliath? - emerges from this piece from BBC News:
"Eight months after his nine-year-old son died in a shooting incident involving private security guards from the US firm Blackwater, the boy’s father has called for an official apology and admission of guilt from the company, rather than compensation.
“I am ready to sign a deal [with Blackwater] in exchange for an admission of the crime and an apology,” Mohammed Hafidh Abdul-Razzaq, a car spare-parts dealer from Baghdad, told the BBC.
“This is important for me, morally, for my family and my tribe.”
He said he had conveyed the message to one of the company’s officials when they met in the Iraqi capital; but, he said, he was told that an admission would not be possible “for legal reasons”.
On Tuesday, Mr Abdul-Razzaq was one of three Iraqis to give evidence to a closed-door session of a federal grand jury in Washington investigating the shooting on 16 September, 2007, in which 17 Iraqi civilians died, including Mr Abdul-Razzaq’s son Ali.
It was one of the most serious incidents involving private security firms in Iraq."
Read on here.
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