In a second case a former first sergeant in another elite unit of the famous Golani Brigade

In a second case, a former first sergeant in another elite unit of the famous Golani Brigade told The Independent how a 16-year-old boy was shot dead in Nablus. The Israeli Defence Forces have opened 17 investigations into lethal shootings of Palestinians after former soldiers made a series of testimonies about incidents in which they say the deaths should have been prevented. The investigations were opened after the “Breaking the Silence” organisation collected hundreds of testimonies from ex-soldiers. They wanted to talk for the first time about incidents from their military service during the second intifada that had disturbed or angered them.
In one testimony, a former staff sergeant in an elite unit claims a brigade commander told his men that “every kid you see with a stone, you may shoot him” on the grounds that a stone is a “murder weapon” and the commander had seen a woman being hit by a stone. Mr Blair’s spokesman said: “We will watch developments with sadness, as whenever attacks like this occur in Iraq.”Fifty-five servicemen have died in action since the beginning of Operation Telic, the name for UK military operations in Iraq. The rest – including one civilian firefighter and a Royal Navy chief petty officer on a ship not assigned to Telic – have died of natural causes, accidents or incidents which remain under investigation.The last soldiers to die from hostile action in the Basra region were Corporal Marc Taylor, 27, and Gunner David Lawrence, 25, who were killed when their convoy was ambushed in September last year..

Other British soldiers have been killed in the more volatile area of Amarah or north of the British-controlled sector.Yesterday, the Ministry of Defence said details of names or regiments would not be released until all next of kin had been contacted.”We can confirm that two soldiers from Multi-National Division South-East died this morning at 11.30 local time from injuries sustained in a roadside bomb explosion in Basra province,” said an MoD spokesman.John Reid, the Secretary of State for Defence, said: “I would like to offer my sympathy and personal condolences to the families of the two service personnel who lost their lives in Iraq.”It is deeply tragic that they have been killed whilst carrying out their duty.”Tony Blair was told of the deaths while attending an EU-China summit in Beijing. “If you need a metaphor for failure, this is as good as it gets,” he said “Everybody should be buried [This is] an insult to our humanity.”. Two British soldiers were killed when their armoured Land Rover was hit by a roadside bomb in southern Iraq. The deaths bring the British military toll in the Gulf to 94 since the beginning of the war in Iraq in March 2003. The soldiers were travelling five miles east of Shaibah – the British logistics headquarters south-west of Basra – when the explosive device went off at 8.30am British time yesterday.
They are the first soldiers killed by hostile action near Basra for almost a year.

The couple had survived the storm and, knowing they would face days with out electricity or water – or any assistance from the authorities, Vera was on her way to the local store for supplies when she was knocked down.Patrick McCarthy, a retired electrician, was one those who helped bury her. Now, veterans of hurricanes will always put an axe in their attic.”Vera, of course, was not killed by the hurricane – as Max Keene stresses. The rescue workers have had to leave them and instead concentrate on those who are alive.Harold Brandt, a doctor from Baton Rouge who has been assisting rescue crews as they search the still flooded areas of the city for survivors, said the biggest concerns was the number of bodies that may be discovered in attics.”One of the things with Hurricane Betsy [in 1965] was that people climbed into their attics to avoid the rising water and then they had no way to escape and they drowned. Every now and then it happens that way,” said Mr Keene, tears in the corners of his eyes “We used to lie in bed. I’d drink bourbon, she’d read books.”Who knows how many other stories there are like Vera’s; how many other bodies lie scattered across this besieged city? Local officials refuse to predict a total but one thing is certain, the city is littered with abandoned corpses.

They are left in the street, in buildings, in the backs of trucks wrapped in sheets with a name tag attached. One woman’s body was discovered sitting upright in a chair at the back of a dental surgery. It was dark and they were clearing the streets.”Max and Vera were not married in the formal sense but they had been together for 25 years. They had met when she was working as a waitress in a bar and he was working off-shore for one of the many oil companies that operate in the Gulf of Mexico.There was nothing particular that struck Max about Vera, he recalled, but he liked her sense of fun, her spirit. Smith was her name from her first marriage; she was originally from Mexico.”She was married, her old man left her I had a different girlfriend then, she left me It was the right time We just got together. She liked clothes and shoes and shopping and – like many people in this city – sometimes she liked a drink.

She also liked books and every Sunday she went to the local Catholic church, St Mary’s Assumption. Vera, aged 65, was apparently killed by a hit-and-run driver as New Orleans descended into chaos and anarchy the day after the storm struck. Nothing better underlines the breakdown in the civic ability to respond to this disaster than those police officers who shrugged their shoulders helplessly when they were asked to remove Vera’s body.”She had gone out to the shop to get something We knew it was going to close. It was me that went and put the tarp over her.”He added: “I spoke to the police and asked them to take her away but they just told me to get the hell out of there. A guy came round to say she was lying by the side of the road with a piece of cardboard over her. We did not want to run out of anything,” Vera’s husband, Max Keene, 59, told The Independent yesterday, standing outside the couple’s humble rented home in the neighbourhood known as Irish Channel “I did not know what had happened to her. These were the people unable to evacuate, who had nowhere else to go or else no means of getting there.