SAOIRSE32

Guardian

Alexi Mostrous
Friday August 4, 2006

A confidential hotline and post office box will be set up to help locate the bodies of people secretly killed and buried by the IRA.

Under an agreement between the British and Irish governments and the Independent Commission for the Location of Victims’ Remains, authorities will also collect DNA from the closest biological relatives of the victims, as well as medical and dental records of the missing, and carry out detailed surveys on suspected grave sites.

The remains of five of the nine “disappeared”, whom the IRA in 1999 admitted to murdering, remain hidden in the Irish republic.

BN.ie

04/08/2006 - 16:19:10

Sinn Féin has criticised the British government’s defence of its attitude towards the Dublin and Monaghan bombings inquiries.

The party says it is wrong of the country’s ambassador to Ireland to say there has been no cover-up to determine the alleged involvement of military intelligence in the atrocities.

Stuart Eldon has said the level of co-operation with the Barron inquiry must take into account protection of the lives of people who were involved at the time.

Deputy Aenghus O’Snodaigh claimed today that Britain has not managed to disprove its involvement.

He said: “All fingers over the years have pointed to an involvement through collusion by the British army and their agents in Ireland and they haven’t disproved that.”

“They haven’t shown us what they’ve done since to arrest people, to charge them yet you have the British ambassador saying that they knew who was involved and they’re trying to protect them.”

BBC

A County Armagh man has appeared before Newry Magistrates Court charged in connection with the seizure of a large haul of cigarettes.

Patrick Brian Seamus Dynes, 32, from Granemore Park in Keady, is charged with possessing property for the purposes of terrorism.

Police and customs officers seized 15.5m cigarettes with an estimated value of £1m in Armagh last November.

Mr Dynes was remanded in custody.

http://www.feilebelfast.com/

**Click on the above link for an online programme of this year’s events.

“Welcome to the site of one of the world’s finest festivals - Féile an Phobail West Belfast!

Based in the north of Ireland, August Féile is our major project, and is a festival with world-class and international acts playing along side our local and national talent!

Féile an Phobail are also responsible for Draíocht Children’s Arts Festival, Féile an Earraigh / Spring Festival and Féile FM radio station.

We hope you enjoy browsing our site and hope to meet you at our events during the year!”

Sean Paul O’Hare Director / Stiúrthoir

Irelandclick

By Roisin McManus
4 August 2006

Family, friends and comrades bade a sad farewell yesterday to lifelong republican and former Sinn Féin Councillor Sean Keenan.

Sean died on Monday following a long battle with cancer. He was buried on Wednesday following requiem Mass at the Church of the Nativity in Poleglass.

Hundreds of mourners, led by Sean’s grieving family, made their way from the former councillor’s Glenwood Drive home to the church to the strains of a lone piper.
A large Sinn Féin contingent at the funeral was led by President Gerry Adams and chief negotiator Martin McGuinness. Local councillors and MLAs flanked the Tricolour-draped coffin as it made the journey to the church.

Sean originally came from Derry and was from a prominent republican family.
He was elected to Belfast City Council in 1985 to represent West Belfast and played a key role on housing issues. Sean was also a key figure in campaigning for Irish language rights.

Seán Keenan was among the first wave of Sinn Féin councillors to be returned to Belfast City Hall in May 1985 at a time when unionists refused to allow the republican representatives to speak at Council meetings or take part in committee business.

With his colleagues, he was involved in a number of high-profile legal cases which forced unionists to respect Sinn Féin’s mandate by appointing them to chair committees, represent the Council on outside business and take a full part in monthly meetings. In 1983, he was gravely wounded when a car he was travelling in with Gerry Adams and two other republicans was ambushed by loyalists in Belfast city centre. He was shot in the neck, the bullet exiting through his nose. Some years later, he was shot again when a loyalist murder gang tried to smash its way into his Riverdale home from the M1 motorway — in full view of the nearby observation post at Musgrave Barracks.
Sean Keenan was prominent in the IRA in Derry in the early seventies, and was among IRA members who were asked to provide statements to the Bloody Sunday Inquiry as volunteers on the day of the massacre.
Celebrating the funeral Mass, Fr Des Wilson, a close friend of Sean’s, said that he will be remembered as someone who changed Belfast for the better.
“Sean was, and still is, a good friend,” said Fr Wilson.
“He worked tirelessly on our behalf. We thank God for him, and his family and friends should be consoled to know that he helped us towards a just and free society.”
Fr Wilson said that Sean had carried out groundbreaking political work in the city and had shown great courage in doing so at a time when the political landscape was much more dangerous.
“For young people it is impossible to remember what politics were like when Sean began his political life. People were imprisoned because of what they thought and were deprived of houses. They were deprived of these by government. It took a great deal of courage to stand against the viciousness of this, to oppose it was a mammoth task and required great courage, but Sean had courage of this type. In his last days, as he battled cancer, he kept that courage,” he added.

Fr Wilson also praised Sean’s work in the Irish language sector.

“Sean worked hard to preserve the language, he was determined to make sure the language would flourish.

“Because of the work of Sean and many others we live a better life,” he added.

West Belfast MP Gerry, speaking earlier this week, also paid tribute to Sean and expressed his sympathy to his family.

“Thousands of people live today in better housing because of Sean’s conscientious efforts on their behalf,” said Mr Adams.

“It was through the efforts of Sean and other Sinn Féin councillors elected in the 1980s and 1990s that much of the bigotry and sectarianism in the City Hall was successfully challenged.

“I would extend my deepest condolences and those of republicans throughout Belfast and beyond to Sean’s partner Una and her family, his three children Colm, Nuala and Cillian and their mother Marian.
“I measc laochra na nGael a raibh sé.”

Sean was laid to rest in Milltown Cemetery.

Journalist:: Roisin McManus

Irelandclick

By Damian McCarney

A crowd of approximately 500 people marched in Beechmount in protest after a gang of yobs attacked residents with petrol bombs last weekend.

Last Friday’s orchestrated assault by hoods was the most serious incident in recent months, but it was far from an isolated incident of anti-social behaviour in the area.

Residents fed up with nightly bouts of underage drinking, solvent abuse and fighting showed that they were no longer prepared to tolerate such unacceptable behaviour by amassing in their hundreds.

Chairperson of Beechmount Residents’ Association, Dennis Gregg, addressed the crowd which lined much of Beechmount Avenue and spilled into the neighbouring streets.

“We want a more hands-on approach to deal with anti-social behaviour in the area.

“If we are not happy with what is happening we will picket the house and tell them that they are no longer welcome in the area.

“We are not scaremongering, people will not be put out just for having a party, but they will for going to the pitches armed with petrol bombs and attacking our community. That is not acceptable and we will not stand idly by while it happens.”

The numbers further swelled as the crowd marched around Beechmount estate passing local hotspots for loutish behaviour and made their way up to Mica Drive and St Mary’s Gardens to show their support for the residents who bore the brunt of Friday night’s trouble.

As they made their way they delivered a letter of protest to an off-sales which they alleged was selling alcohol to underage youths.

At the gates of St Paul’s Primary School the chairperson of Clonard Residents’ Association, Sean Murray, told the crowd that the protest was “drawing a line in the sand” for anti-social elements in Beechmount.

“It is heartening to see such a massive crowd, and it is a clear demonstration for people involved in anti-social behaviour that it is not acceptable.

“I do not want to categorise or stigmatise the young people in this area, as it is only a small minority of youths involved and not all of them come from this area. Many are from outside of the area.”

Sean Murray also called for local people to become involved in the local Safer Neighbourhood Project.

“It is up to our community to recognise the problems facing it and work out a community response to it.

“Nobody else is going to do anything about it if we don’t. It is up to the community to stand together.

“There is a massive amount of work needed to be done and the burden falls on too few people.

“If you care for the kids of the area, if you care for the community and if you care for the area then I urge you to become involved in the SNP.”

After the meeting residents showed the Andersonstown News around the large expanse of waste-ground at the centre of the ongoing problems.

Youths, often numbering as many as 100, arrive, some by taxi, with their carry-outs to meet with others and cause mayhem. Twisted beer cans, remains of fires, and the burnt-out shells of stolen cars, some of which were abandoned as recently as Friday, lie strewn amongst the overgrown weeds.

Sean Murray said a meeting of all the interested parties was required to secure the area.

As a follow-up to the community’s active response to the current problems, the residents’ association have organised a clean-up on Saturday starting at 10am at the Blackie Centre, followed by a community fun day at Mica Day Centre at 1pm.

Journalist:: Damien McCarney

Daily Ireland

By Connla Young
4 August 2006

Anti-Shell campaigners in the west of Ireland have described as “appalling” proposals by the multi-national company to ignore the concerns of local residents and build a massive gas terminal in Co Mayo.
Shell E&P Ireland yesterday revealed plans to modify the route of a potentially dangerous gas line as well as look towards dropping a high court injunction against a group of local people who object to the pipeline on safety grounds.
The company, which is made up of Shell Oil, Statoil Exploration (Ireland) Limited and Marathon International Petroleum Hibernia Ltd, says the pipeline is necessary to carry gas from the Corrib field to a planned refinery nine kilometres inland at Bellenaboy, Co Mayo. Rossport residents have demanded the refinery be located offshore.
Mark Garavan from the Shell to Sea campaign says Rossport residents concerns have not been addressed.
“This is a very serious matter and they are giving the illusion of addressing the problem when when they are doing nothing of the sort. They think a minor adjustment to the pipeline, will fix the problem, but they are not addressing the core difficulty about how the gas is being processed. They have now said the project is going ahead on their terms. After six years of community concern and campaigning this is an appalling response.”
The campaigner said he is also concerned about Shell’s motives in dropping the court injunction, which saw the Rossport Five locked up for 100 days last year.
Earlier this week the High Court in Dublin ordered both Shell and the Irish government to produce documents relating to the Corrib gas project.
If the injunction, which prohibits six people including three of the Rossport Five from interfering with pipe laying work, is removed, the vital documents may not have to be produced.
Shell say they have based their latest move on the contents of a report produced by Peter Cassells, a mediator between Shell and a recently published Independent Safety Review.
Rossport Five member Vincent McGrath says he had little faith in Peter Cassells.
“What Shell wants to do is turn this pristine area into an Niger Delta industrial complex. Peter Cassells has no expertise in this area whatsoever, he owns a private consultancy service. Who is more likely to give him a contract when all this is over?”
Andy Pyle, Managing Director of Shell E&P Ireland said: “We have made a number of key changes over the past year. We have agreed to implement all of the recommendations in the Independent Safety Review, have expanded the team in Mayo engaging with the local community and we have publicly apologised for the hurt caused last summer.”
“This argument is no longer about safety. The safety issues have been comprehensively addressed through the Independent Safety Review. This pipeline is safe. It’s time for this project to move forward.”

Daily Ireland

Laurence McKeown
4 August 2006

In 2003 I met with a group of activists from Israel and Palestine and in conversation with one of them, a lecturer from a Beirut university, I made reference to the Israelis pulling out of Lebanon in May 2000.
“The Israelis did not pull out.” She corrected me.
“They were put out; by Hezbollah.”
She was correct of course. The Israelis had been suffering a high level of casualties and public opinion when Israel itself turned against their military occupation of Lebanon.
Hezbollah are much stronger today than they were in 2000. They are also ‘dug in’, not just in the sense of being an integral part of Lebanese society but also literally, having built chambers and tunnels underground in southern Lebanon, much like the Vietnamese did when fighting the US.
Israel knows Hezbollah cannot be defeated militarily but their aim is to establish a ‘buffer zone’ and then get others, an international force, to defend it for them while they try to deal with Hamas on their doorstep.
Israeli spokespeople now talk about such an international presence as if it’s a done deal and unfortunately many Western commentators repeat that line as if somehow it makes sense.
It’s hard to believe any credible state will send military forces to help defend a piece of ground taken illegally by superior force of arms at the cost of hundreds of dead civilians and 1,000,000 left homeless, hungry, thirsty, and, increasingly, ill. It’s unthinkable any state would enter such a situation in the absence of all inclusive talks and a political arrangement.
That’s what Israel expects and is working towards. It says something about how they view the international community who they mostly ignore, until they need them, then expect to rally to their aid. But they’ve good cause to be confident. They’ve got away with it in the past and had continued US support, much like the behaviour of unionists here vis-à-vis the British government. Thankfully unionists never possessed the same level of military might as the Israelis.
Regardless of that military power, katyusha rockets land daily on Israel. As the British discovered in Ireland, military might alone means nothing when up against a guerrilla army supported by the populace. You would think that Tony Blair at least would have learned that lesson.

Daily Ireland

Robin Livingstone
4 August 2006

Oh dear, there’s more criticism of the Trevors and the way they handled the UDA’s decision to take over north Belfast on Wednesday night. It’s all coming from the usual suspects of course, from people who are more interested in scoring petty political points than they are in considering the practical and operational difficulties that face the Trevors, as they try to hold the ring in a part of the city that’s on a knife edge; a powder keg waiting to explode; looking over the precipice; staring into the abyss (delete as appropriate).
I mean, ask yourself this, if you were a senior Trevor on the ground and 30 (or a thousand, depending on where you get your news) UDA thugs in Burberry baseball caps and Linfield scarves came marching along the Ballysillan Road, coin rings glinting in the dying rays of the evening sun, what would you have done? You try and stop them and you’re liable to get a broken nose or a tomato sauce moustache – much better by far of course to let them get on with it and hope that they’re much too incensed about their drugs cut and prostitution income to bother with any of the hundreds of Catholics homes that they passed on their way to the Westland estate.

(more…)

Daily Ireland

By Ciarán Barnes
4 August 2006

The Shoukri brothers were still defying the UDA last night by refusing to be transferred from the loyalist wing of Maghaberry prison.
Andre and Ihab Shoukri’s refusal to budge, came as their mother Katie, elder brother Yuk, and a group of close associates including the McClean family, fled their homes in the Westland area of north Belfast. They travelled to Dublin airport where they were due to fly abroad to an unknown destination.
The exodus came after hundreds of Ulster Defence Association (UDA) members threatened to flood the Westland estate and forcibly remove the families.
Their path was blocked by the PSNI, which then escorted the Shoukri and McClean clans and a number of their supporters from the area.
The late-night stand-off occurred after the breakaway faction of the north Belfast UDA attacked the homes of mainstream UDA members in the Ballysillan area.
The breakaway faction is led by Alan McClean, who took over its running after previous leaders Andre and Ihab Shoukri were jailed. The brothers are currently being held on the loyalist wing of Maghaberry prison.
Last night prison sources told Daily Ireland they had resisted demands from UDA prisoners to move off the wing. The Shoukris have been warned that they risk being attacked if they remain on the wing.
A loyalist source said the brothers were staging “one final act of bravado”.
“They are mad in the head, they are still puffing their chests out and walking about the jail as if nothing has happened,” said the UDA insider.
“Their whole world is falling down. Their family and friends have ran away. It’s crazy that they are still sticking two fingers up to the UDA by refusing to move off the wing. It reminds me of when the Emperor Nero played the fiddle as Rome burned around him.”
With McClean fleeing Belfast and the Shoukris languishing in jail it appears that the feud between the UDA and the north Belfast faction has ended.
The man expected to take over is in his late 30s and nicknamed “Diamond’. He has been a UDA member for more than 20 years and has been the organisation’s interim leader in the area for the last week.
While there appears to be relative calm now in north Belfast, the potential for a fresh UDA feud exists in south Antrim.
The UDA leadership in the area refused to support the mainstream UDA in its action against the Shoukri brothers and McClean.
The south Antrim ‘brigadier’ is a good friend of the three. Senior UDA figures are now questioning whether it is also time for a change of leadership in the area.

Belfast Telegraph

**Story from yesterday

By Brian Rowan
03 August 2006

A senior loyalist was driven out of north Belfast early this morning as a power struggle inside the UDA threatened to explode into a street battle.

Alan McClean - an associate of the Shoukri brothers Andre and Ihab - was blamed by the UDA’s inner council for a series of attacks on houses in the north of the city.

Hours later, he and sons Alan and Wayne were forced to leave their home on the Westland estate - a paramilitary exiling that may end the latest feud inside the UDA.

A meeting was due to take place today which inner council members say will elect a new north Belfast leadership.

Loyalist sources say one of the houses attacked last night was the home of the “interim” paramilitary leader in north Belfast approved by the UDA Inner Council last week as an alternative to McClean.

In response, the same loyalist sources claim the UDA brought up to 1,000 men on to the streets.

Their intention was to force McClean and his associates out, but the sources say police blocked their route to the Westland estate.

A local pastor, Brian Madden, helped negotiate an end to what was described as a “desperate” situation.

“I phoned the (Inner) Council,” he told the Belfast Telegraph, “and asked if I could persuade Alan McClean to leave would it ease tensions, and they said it would be a step in the right direction.”

In the early hours of this morning, pastor Madden said there was still “a lot of fear on the streets - real fear”.

“It’s terrible. You could cut the atmosphere with a knife,” he added.

The pastor told this newspaper that McClean and his sons were leaving north Belfast.

According to senior loyalist sources they were heading for “the boat”.

This has yet to be confirmed, but loyalists are adamant that they have left their home in the north of the city.

Inner council members were present in the Westland estate this morning - something that risked attack just 24 hours earlier.

McClean and the Shoukri brothers were expelled from the UDA in June, but refused to obey the orders of the organisation’s Inner Council to stand down.

Last week that Inner Council leadership moved to further isolate them by approving a “new interim brigade staff”.

There have been a number of attacks in north Belfast since - the latest coming last night.

The UDA leadership had warned it would respond to any attacks on its members and last night brought hundreds of men on to the streets in the north of the city.

There is a view now that with McClean gone from the Westland estate a new agreed leadership can be appointed and that the UDA’s so-called North Belfast Brigade can rejoin the mainstream organisation.

“North Belfast will decide their own destiny,” a senior paramilitary source told the Belfast Telegraph.

But what about the feud, is it over?

“That should be it sorted,” the senior paramilitary source told this newspaper.

However, some UDA members are asking stern questions about the supposedly neutral role of the UDA’s South East Antrim leadership in the crisis.

Belfast Telegraph

By Kathryn Torney
04 August 2006

The Education Minister came under fire yesterday for taking a month-long holiday during a crucial summer for education in Northern Ireland.

UUP education spokesman David McNarry has also queried who is running the department during Maria Eagle’s absence.

Mr McNarry was informed that the minister is on holiday for the whole of August when he requested an urgent meeting with her this week.

“I wanted to discuss the department’s massive underspend, but was told that the minister was on holiday. The minister is entitled to a holiday, but this is a crucial summer for education in Northern Ireland,” he said.

“We have commissioners running one of Northern Ireland’s education boards, work is under way in relation to the new Education Order and we have teachers trying to adjust to all of the changes planned for the education system.

“For the minister not to be available for a month in the middle of all of this is inconceivable to me.

“I am sure she is contactable if a crisis arises, but it would appear in response to my request for a meeting that the department has shut down in ministerial terms for a month.”

He said he would like to know what is being done about the department’s £69m underspend, overspends by education boards and curriculum changes.

“Who is in charge of education in Northern Ireland?” asked Mr McNarry.

A Department of Education spokesman said arrangements are in place to ensure ministerial cover, but she could not provide any detail on who that was.

She added that senior department officials remain available to meet with Mr McNarry to discuss his concerns.

Belfast Telegraph

By Lisa Smyth
04 August 2006

Loyalist terror boss Jim ‘Doris Day’ Gray was behind the slaying of his former UDA comrade George Legge, his grieving partner has claimed.

Ashleigh Kirkwood answered the telephone call which led her partner of seven years to his death and said she was convinced Gray, Legge’s former business associate, ordered the murder.

Ms Kirkwood vented her hatred for the murdered UDA commander and said she wishes she was the one who killed the so-called ‘brigadier of bling’.

Her comments come days after Legge’s mother, Margaret, told a Belfast coroner that she also blames Gray for her son’s gruesome death.

Legge was tortured, stabbed 15 times and his throat was slit in an attack believed to have taken place in the Bunch of Grapes, an east Belfast bar owned by Gray, hours after he was summoned to a meeting at the premises.

His mutilated body was discovered in a field on the outskirts of south Belfast the following day.

Four years later, in October last year, Gray was shot five times in the back as he shifted weightlifting gear from the boot of a car outside his father’s home in east Belfast - prompting speculation that he was assassinated by someone he trusted.

Speaking out after discovering that she had not been informed about her former partner’s inquest, Ms Kirkwood pointed the finger of blame at the UDA boss.

She said: “Gray did it, I know he did and I’m glad he’s dead. I only wish I had killed him.

“I took the phone call the night George was killed asking him to come up to the Bunch of Grapes and he knew it wasn’t good, but he went. I think he thought he might be kneecapped or get a hiding, but I don’t think he thought they would kill him.

“He told me to ring him in 15 minutes time if I hadn’t heard from him and I don’t remember how long I left it before I started ringing and leaving messages.”

And rubbishing widespread allegations that Legge had fallen out of favour with the UDA amid claims of missing cash, Ms Kirkwood said the reason for the murder was Gray’s own drug abuse and paranoia.

“George was a good loyalist, but he didn’t like the way things were going with all the drugs. After he was stabbed a couple of years before, he changed and preferred spending time with his family,” she explained.

“He was trying to move away from the UDA and Gray didn’t like that.

“He didn’t have the same family ties as George and didn’t like that he wasn’t going out with him - the paranoia got to him.

“George is painted as a monster by the media, but when you see videos of him with our daughter Anastasia you see how much he doted on her and that he was a good father and a real family man.”

Belfast Telegraph

By Claire Regan
04 August 2006

Painstaking work to box up more than 800,000 priceless items housed in the Ulster Museum has begun ahead of its temporary closure later this year.

Over the coming months, staff are faced with the mammoth task of packaging every item from the museum’s extensive art, history and science collections.

Image from >>here

It was announced yesterday that the museum is to close for two-and-a-half years at the beginning of October to allow for work to begin on a £12m project which will completely transform the landmark south Belfast building.

It is planned to have the re-vamped museum opened to the public again in the Spring of 2009, offering a “truly world class venue for the 21st Century”.

For the duration of the 30 months’ work, the museum’s 800,000 artifacts, big and small, will be kept at a storage site in the Greater Belfast area.

Even the famous Egyptian Mummy will be kept at the specially-conditioned store - the exact location of which has been kept secret amid security concerns.

The museum will stay open until the afternoon of Sunday October 1 when there will be a large-scale family event to mark its closure.

While the museum’s halls and exhibitions will remain open and fully stocked until then, work has already begun on packaging items not currently on display and art work from the upper floors.

The Belfast Telegraph was given a behind-the-scenes peek at how the vital work is coming along as details of the transformation project were announced at the museum yesterday.

Dr Jim McGreevy, director of collections and interpretations at the Ulster Museum, said the new storage facility has been developed with both security and the items’ environmental needs in mind.

“We have a ‘take no chances’ approach to both the packaging and storage of the items. The off-site storage site has been developed with particular attention to environmental needs such as temperature, humidity and protection from damaging creatures like moths,” he said.

Natural science conservator Jill Kerr has already begun packaging the taxidermy collection. Speaking as she boxed up a gorilla skeleton, she explained the attention to detail needed for the huge task.

“The same level of care and attention is being given to every single item we have, regardless of their financial value. Whether you are talking about the Mummy or a stick insect, they are equally priceless to us and we are taking all action necessary to prevent damage, ” she said.

A stuffed ant-eater, giant Irish Wolfhound and extinct Tasmanian wolf are among the items already delicately placed in specially constructed wooden boxes which have perspex windows for staff to keep an eye on them over the next two and a half years.

In a closed gallery next door, the beautiful furniture collection has been boxed, lying beside wrapped items from the ethnomusicology section. And upstairs, hundreds of important easel paintings have been boxed and are ready to be trucked to their new home over the coming months.

The renovation project will bring an additional 1,225 square metres of space into public use. It will transform the museum’s exhibition space, improving learning and visitor facilities and integrate the building more fully with the surrounding Botanic Gardens.

It is hoped visitor numbers will increase by 50,000 from the average 206,000 which come through the doors each year.

Speaking at the museum yesterday, chief executive of National Museums Northern Ireland, which runs the Ulster Museum, Tim Cooke, said the work will position it as a “truly world-class venue for the 21st Century”.

You can get virtual access to the museum’s collections during the closure period and keep up with the project’s latest developments at www.ulstermuseum.org.uk.

Belfast Telegraph

By Leonard Doyle
04 August 2006

Israel’s defence forces were yesterday condemned for systematically and deliberately targeting civilians in Lebanon, acts which the respected New York organisation Human Rights Watch described as “serious violations of international law” or war crimes.

The number of Lebanese killed in the 23-day conflict is now close to 900, the vast majority of them civilians, and a quarter of Lebanon’s population is in flight. Although the Israeli government claims it is taking all possible measures to minimise civilian harm, Human Rights Watch said their detailed investigations revealed “a systematic failure by the Israeli Defence Forces to distinguish between combatants and civilians”. The 50-page report flatly accuses Israeli forces of launching artillery and air attacks “with limited or dubious military gain but excessive civilian cost”.

“In dozens of attacks, Israeli forces struck an area with no apparently military target,” the report states.

In a particularly damning section it concludes that “in some cases, the timing and intensity of the attack, the absence of a military target, as well as return strikes against rescuers, suggest that Israeli forces deliberately targeted civilians”.

Israel’s defence is that it targets Hizbollah and that the militia uses civilians as human shields, thereby putting them at risk. The report could find no evidence to back this up. When investigators went to Qana, Srifa and Tyre, where numerous civilians had been killed, they could see “no evidence” of Hizbollah military activity in the area, no spent ammunition, abandoned weapons or military equipment or dead or wounded fighters.

In its central allegation, Human Rights Watch accuses Israel of violating one of the most fundamental tenets of the laws of war: the duty to carry out attacks only on military targets.

Human Rights Watch also accuses Hizbollah of war crimes in firing rockets packed with ball bearings and without guidance systems towards civilian areas. But the focus of the report is on Israel. Over 50 pages and with forensic detail, it lists attack after attack on civilian homes, often by rockets fired from Apache helicopters. In addition to strikes from aeroplanes, helicopters and traditional artillery, it reveals that Israel has fired cluster munitions against populated areas. On 19 July, for example, survivors of an attack described hundreds of cluster shells dropping on a village.

There is no specific international ban on cluster bombs, but their use in or near civilians is considered an indiscriminate attack, and therefore a war crime, because they cannot be directed in a way that distinguishes between military and civilian targets.

The report examines the air strike on Qana last Saturday, which sparked international outrage and intensified calls for a ceasefire. Human Rights Watch reveals that 28 people died in the attack rather than the 54 originally reported by Lebanese rescue workers. The report details how Israeli warplanes attacked a three-storey building in which 63 members of two extended families were sheltering. At least 22 people are now known to have escaped and 13 remain unaccounted for, presumably buried under the rubble.

Yesterday Israel’s own inquiry into the bombing of Qana exonerated the army and found that it would not have bombed a building if it had known civilians were inside. Instead it accused Hizbollah of using human shields.

BBC

Up to 3,000 children under the age of 18 could have their details on police databases, the Northern Ireland children’s commissioner has said.

Commissioner Barney McNeany said many of the young people had not been charged or been found guilty of offences.

He said he wants “urgent meetings” with the police and government.

“The UN Committee on the Rights of the Child will consider this to be breach of children’s rights,” he said.

“Because it is my job to advise government when I think children’s rights are being breached, I want to talk to the PSNI and the Policing Board.

Criticised

“Children and young people and parents have told me that they consider this to be unfair and I think it’s important that I represent these views robustly to the PSNI and to government.”

Earlier this week, the parents of an 11-year-old girl criticised police in Derry after their daughter was photographed and fingerprinted by officers.

Police turned up at the child’s home in the Creggan area after she had allegedly been seen writing graffiti on the city walls.

The girl’s mother, Eileen Millar, said officers were “guilty of child abuse”.

A police spokesperson said they had an obligation to investigate all reports of criminal damage.

Traumatised

They also said that when approached by officers, the three girls involved in this case claimed to be in their mid-teens.

Mrs Millar said her daughter had been left traumatised by the incident.

“My daughter is 11 years of age and has never spoken to a policeman in her life,” she said.

“They took her into another room, photographed her, fingerprinted her, put two swabs in her mouth and took DNA.

“I was also told this would be on record for the rest of her life.”

The family have said they intended to register a complaint with the Police Ombudsman.