JERUSALEM, July 29, 2015 (WAFA)
– Amnesty International revealed on Wednesday that after gathering evidence, it
appears the Israeli forces committed indiscriminate attacks which led to
the killing of scores of Gaza civilians in their homes in Rafah.
The report revealed
“There is overwhelming evidence that Israeli forces committed disproportionate
and indiscriminate attacks which killed scores of civilians in their homes in
Rafah, in southern Gaza Strip, during the Israeli war on Gaza last year.”
Philip Luther, Director of the Middle
East and North Africa Program at Amnesty International said, “This report’s
findings add compelling evidence to an already large body of credible
documentation of serious violations during the Gaza conflict, which demand
independent, impartial and effective investigations.”
”Victims and their families have a
right to justice and reparation. And those suspected of ordering or committing
war crimes must be prosecuted.”
The attacks specified by
Amnesty include repeated firing of artillery and other imprecise explosive
weapons in densely populated civilian areas between 1 and 4 August.
It added that in some cases, evidence
indicates the Israeli forces directly fired at and killed civilians, including
people fleeing.
“Public statements by Israeli
army commanders and soldiers after the conflict provide compelling reasons to
conclude that some attacks that killed civilians and destroyed homes and
property were intentionally carried out and motivated by a desire for revenge –
to teach a lesson to, or punish, the population of Rafah for the capture of Lieutenant
Goldin,” the report explained.
Amnesty argued that Israeli
army commanders and officers “can operate in confidence that they are unlikely
to be held accountable for violations of international law due to the pervasive
climate of impunity” that has existed for decades. “This is due, in large part,
to the lack of independent, impartial and effective investigations.”
The group cited strong evidence
that many of the Israeli attacks in Rafah between 1 and 4 August were serious
violations of international humanitarian law, which followed the capture of
Israeli soldier Lt. Hadar Goldin by Palestinian armed groups on August 1 2014.
An Israeli infantry soldier,
who was quoted by Amnesty, said that during the initial burst of fire, which lasted
three hours, his battery was “firing at
a maximum fire rate” right into inhabited areas. According to the report of an Israeli
military inquiry, more than 2,000 bombs, missiles and shells were fired in
Rafah during 1 August, including 1,000 in the three hours following the
capture.
Israel claimed the initial
strikes aimed to stop the movement of all “suspicious” persons and vehicles, to
isolate the area until the arrival of ground forces and to target known and
suspected tunnel shafts, which meant bombing residential buildings and agricultural
installations suspected of harboring tunnel exits or entrances.
An Israeli officer explained
the logic of the operation, including potentially killing the captured soldier:
“In such an event you prefer a killed soldier rather than a soldier in enemy
hands, like [Gilad] Shalit. I told myself ‘even if I bring back a corpse I have
brought back the missing person’.”
As the strikes began, the roads
in eastern Rafah were full of disoriented civilians moving in all directions.
Believing a ceasefire had begun, they had returned – or were returning – to their
homes. Many decided to turn around, attempting to flee under a barrage of bombs
and gunfire.
Palestinian witnesses described
jets, drones, helicopters and artillery raining fire at pedestrians and
vehicles at the intersections, indiscriminately hitting cars, ambulances, motorbikes
and pedestrians.
Wa’el al-Namla, a father of two,
said “You see the hysteria of the children, destruction, and mushroom clouds,
and you try to get as far away from them as you can”.
Inam Ouda Ayed bin Hammad,
another Palestinian from Rafah, told Amnesty International that, after 9am on 1
August, she noticed the shelling intensifying and missiles landing in close
vicinity to their home in the al-Tannur neighborhood of Rafah.
Inam and her family were on the
streets seeking shelter elsewhere when a bomb hit a building nearby and killed
her son Anas, her cousin Wafa and at least 14 other civilians, as well as
injuring scores of fleeing civilians.
The flood of casualties started
coming into the hospital at about 10am, medical staff told Amnesty.
The attacks around the hospital
grew nearer and more frequent as the day went on. Studying photographs of the
hospital, Forensic Architecture noted both internal and external damage.
On the satellite image taken on
14 August, Forensic Architecture detected one crater about 120m south-west of
the hospital and three craters about the same distance north-east of the
hospital.
Patients, staff and persons
seeking refuge at the hospital proceeded to evacuate the building in a rush
when the attacks intensified. An organized evacuation took place in the
evening. By about 7pm the hospital was closed and reporters claimed that the
entire neighborhood around the Abu Youssef al-Najjar hospital was under
artillery fire.
On the same day three
ambulances from the hospital went to collect wounded people near a mosque in
Rafah; one ambulance was hit and completely destroyed by what appeared to be three
drone-launched missiles. The three medics and all the wounded within the
ambulance were burnt to death. A second ambulance left, while the other, which
remained to collect the wounded and dead, was hit by another apparent drone strike.
The pounding of Rafah continued
for three days after the initial strikes of 1 August, even after Lt. Goldin was
declared dead by an Israeli rabbinical court and buried on 2 August.
Thus far, the Israeli authorities have
proved at best incapable of carrying out independent investigations into crimes
under international law in Rafah and elsewhere, and at worst unwilling to do
so.
M.N/M.H
