Gaza: When will we ever learn?

Des Travers examines an unexploded bomb in South Lebanon in 2006.

With what can only be described as the inhuman atrocity of the current situation in Gaza, we should remember that we have been here before, writes Brian Byrne. Israel has previously conducted obscene warfare in the region, as this story published on the Diary in 2006 records.

Des Travers investigating for Amnesty in South Lebanon in 2006.

It's from an interview with our own Des Travers, after his investigations in South Lebanon on behalf of Amnesty, where he found 'abundant evidence of the targeting of undefended civilians by all available military means'.

And in 2009 he was part of a UN Human Rights Council investigation sent to interview people affected by the three week war in Gaza, which took place at the beginning of that year, after which Israeli, Palestinian, and international human rights groups reported that more than 1,400 Palestinians had been killed, including more than 700 civilians.

The UN team was led by former South African judge Richard Goldstone. He said they had found that there was strong evidence to establish that numerous serious violations of international law, both humanitarian law and human rights law, were committed by Israel during the military operations in Gaza.

As it goes in a line of the anti-war song Where have all the Flowers gone?, 'when will we ever learn?'