Site posts names, photos of 200 Cast Lead 'war criminals'

The anonymous website lists "pirated" contact information for many soldiers, in hopes that they will be prosecuted.

By LAHAV HARKOV
cast lead 311 (photo credit: kobi gideon)
cast lead 311
(photo credit: kobi gideon)
A website launched on Tuesday published a list of 200 IDF soldiers that participated in Operation Cast Lead under the headline "Israeli War Criminals."
The website features names, photographs, ranks, positions, birthdates, identity numbers and addresses of what it claims "the direct perpetrators" of the operation, IDF soldiers that "range from low-level field commanders to the highest echelons of the Israeli army." The information is "pirated," and was received and published anonymously.
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"Not only did they perform on behalf of a murderous state mechanism but actively encouraged other people to do the same," the site claims. "They bear a distinctive personal responsibility."
The site says that by "underlining [specific soldiers] we are purposefully directing attention to individuals rather than the static structures through which they operate...It is to these persons and others like them to which we must object and bring our plaints to bear upon."
The site also "encourages people to seek out other such similar information. It is readily available in the public sphere and inside public officials' locked cabinets." It also asks readers to "disseminate [the information] widely."
"This project...has only just begun," the site reads. "Do your bit so that this virtual list may come to bear upon the physical."
One dissemination strategy has been foiled, as Facebook has prevented users from posting the list on its site. The social networking site called the list of soldiers "blocked content that has previously been flagged as abusive."
The site was later taken down due to violations of its host's terms of service.
The IDF Spokesperson's Unit had no comment on the matter.
Earlier in November, the IDF investigated 400 different complaints filed after Operation Cast Lead in 2009 and questioned more than 600 officers and soldiers, 20 of them under warning, according to statistics released to the public.
Out of the 400 complaints, 50 evolved into criminal investigations – led by the Military Police – and three into indictments, most recently in the case of two soldiers from the Givati Brigade who were convicted last month of exceeding their authority by ordering a nine-year-old Palestinian boy to open bags they suspected might be booby-trapped during the operation in Gaza.
Yaakov Katz contributed to this report.