MIDDLE EAST: Amnesty report says Israel, Hamas commited war crimes during Gaza offensive

Record ID: 731127

  • Title: MIDDLE EAST: Amnesty report says Israel, Hamas commited war crimes during Gaza offensive
  • Date: 3rd July 2009
  • Summary: ASHKELON, ISRAEL (FILE - JANUARY 2009) (REUTERS) ISRAELI CIVILIANS AND SECURITY FORCES RUNNING FOR COVER AFTER SIREN IS HEARD RESIDENT ENTERING HOUSE AS SIREN ECHOES AT SECOND SCENE OF ATTACK, WOMEN CRYING RUNNING INTO HOUSE, PARAMEDIC HOLDING A BABY AND SAYING 'PLEASE STAND NEXT TO THE WALL' MEDIC HUGGING BABY AND CRYING GIRL MAN HOLDING WOUNDED BOY RUNNING TOWARD AMBULANCE
  • Embargoed: 18th July 2009 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Topics: Crime / Law Enforcement,International Relations
  • Reuters ID: LVA6BUK6WOPTULIWO09CMDG0W8DG
  • Story Text: Amnesty International accuses Israel and Hamas of war crimes during January Gaza war, in a newly released report.
    Amnesty International accused Israel and Hamas in a report published on Thursday (July 2) of committing war crimes during the war in Gaza in December-January.
    The London-based rights group released a 117-page report on the 22 days of fighting, saying Israel had inflicted "wanton destruction" in the Gaza Strip in attacks that often targeted Palestinian civilians during an offensive in the Hamas-run enclave.
    It also criticised the Islamist movement Hamas for rocket attacks on Israel, which it called "war crimes".
    "The findings are disturbing. Both sides committed very serious violations of international law, violations of the Geneva Convention several of which constitute war crimes," Amnesty International researcher Donatella Rovera told Reuters in Jerusalem.
    Amnesty International said some 1,400 Palestinians were killed in Israel's Operation Cast Lead, including 300 children and hundreds of innocent civilians, a figure broadly in line with those from the Hamas-run Health Ministry in Gaza. The Israeli military put the Palestinian death toll at 1,166 of whom 295 were civilians.
    "Israeli forces have very sophisticated, very precise weapons, that can take out a target moving, a moving vehicle, so you know, there is no reason to carry out such indiscriminate attack," Rovera said.
    Amnesty said it found no evidence to support Israeli claims that Gaza guerrillas deliberately used civilians as "human shields", but it did, however, cite evidence that Israeli troops put children and other civilians in harm's way by forcing them to remain in homes taken over by soldiers.
    A U.N. report cited one incident in which Israeli soldiers evacuated 110 Palestinians to a house in the Zeitun neighbourhood in central Gaza, warning them to remain indoors. Citing witnesses, the report said the house was later hit by Israeli shells, killing some 30 people.
    An Israeli army spokesman denied the allegation, saying that the Israeli army did not mass people into any specific building, and that investigations showed buildings in Zeitun were not targeted on the specific day.
    Gaza resident Wael Samouni, who lost 30 of his relatives in the alleged attack, recalled the deadly day.
    "My children died at my feet. My aunt fell next to me, my mother fell (dying) in my lap. Why did you do this to us? I don't understand, why did you do this?... Our area is a non violent area, it is all mainly al-Samuni family who are farmers working with their vegetables and land. Why did you take them to a house and then kill them?" Samouni said in front of piles of debris left at the site of the shelled house.
    Thirteen Israelis were killed, including three civilians, during the offensive Israel had launched with the declared aim of ending cross-border rocket attacks.
    Israel said daily rocket attacks from Gaza on Israeli towns killed 18 people in Israel over the previous eight years and inflicted fear and panic amongst residents living near Gaza.
    Amnesty criticised rocket launching by Palestinian militants from the Gaza Strip, calling it "war crimes". It also criticised Hamas and other armed groups of endangering the lives of the Palestinian civilian population in Gaza by firing rockets and locating military equipment near homes.
    "All the rocket attacks launched by Hamas and other Palestinian armed groups constitute war crimes because they're all unlawful, they're indiscriminate attacks," Rovera said.
    Pinchas Amar, an Israeli resident of the southern town of Sderot, who's house was directly hit by a Qassam rocket launched from Gaza in 2007, said he and his fellow residents live in constant fear, some use prescription drugs to deal with shock and anxiety of rocket scare.
    "Here in Israel, we are the... take the bombs, we are the frightened and I don't think that they have a problem like we have and I don't want to tell you how you feel when all the day you are frightened you can't to go outside," Amar said in his reconstructed home.
    Hamas, which controls the Gaza Strip and is shunned by Israel and the West, said the report reflects violations committed by the Israeli army.
    "There is no doubt that the report was balanced to reflect the occupation army generals and colonels' committing of war crimes against the Palestinian people. It also came to show that Hamas was free of these accusations raised by the Zionist enemy, accusing them of using human shields or fighting out of the civilian areas," Hamas leader Radwan Abu Ayash said in Gaza City.
    Israel said that while its troops tried to minimise hurting civilian population, Hamas put its own people in the line of fire.
    "Israel made every possible effort to keep the innocent civilian population out of the conflict. We didn't want to see Gaza civilians caught up in the crossfire between Israel and Hamas. We tried to be as surgical as is humanly possible in a difficult combat situation. That cannot be said for Hamas that adopted policies and strategies that deliberately endangered Gaza civilians. They turned civilian neighbourhoods into war zones, they shot rockets out of mosques they stored explosives in schools," Israeli Prime Minister's spokesperson Mark Regev said in Jerusalem.
    Since the operation, Israel and Hamas have both rejected accusations of war crimes. An Israeli military inquiry found no evidence of crimes.
    Israel has refused to cooperate with a United Nations inquiry that is now gathering evidence. The investigators were prejudiced against Israel from the outset, the government said.
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