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Israel’s air strikes on Gaza 'could be war crimes'
Source: The Independent
Israel’s air strikes on Gaza 'could be war crimes'
BEN LYNFIELD JERUSALEM Tuesday 04 November 2014
Israeli air strikes during the summer’s Gaza war with Hamas repeatedly inflicted harm and death on civilians that could have been avoided, Amnesty International has charged in a new report.
The report, Families Under the Rubble, examines eight cases of targeted Israeli air strikes that killed at least 111 people, 104 of whom were civilians, according to Amnesty. Amnesty said it had “significant doubt” in some of the cases about whether a military objective was present, something that could make the strike a war crime. “In all the cases documented in this report, there was a failure to take necessary precautions to avoid excessive harm to civilians and civilian property as required by international humanitarian law,” the report said.
According to UN figures, 2,192 Palestinians died in the conflict, including 1,523 civilians and 18,000 homes were destroyed. Israel, which lost six civilians and 64 soldiers and suffered disruption due to Hamas missile strikes, says it tried its best to minimise civilian casualties but that the militant group used civilians as human shields.
The report, however, was scathing. “In those cases where Amnesty International has been able to determine the possible military target, it has found either that in fact it was not a military objective, that the devastating toll on civilians and civilian property was out of all proportion to any military advantage from the attack and/or that Israel failed to take necessary precautions to minimise harm to civilians.”
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BEN LYNFIELD JERUSALEM Tuesday 04 November 2014
Israeli air strikes during the summer’s Gaza war with Hamas repeatedly inflicted harm and death on civilians that could have been avoided, Amnesty International has charged in a new report.
The report, Families Under the Rubble, examines eight cases of targeted Israeli air strikes that killed at least 111 people, 104 of whom were civilians, according to Amnesty. Amnesty said it had “significant doubt” in some of the cases about whether a military objective was present, something that could make the strike a war crime. “In all the cases documented in this report, there was a failure to take necessary precautions to avoid excessive harm to civilians and civilian property as required by international humanitarian law,” the report said.
According to UN figures, 2,192 Palestinians died in the conflict, including 1,523 civilians and 18,000 homes were destroyed. Israel, which lost six civilians and 64 soldiers and suffered disruption due to Hamas missile strikes, says it tried its best to minimise civilian casualties but that the militant group used civilians as human shields.
The report, however, was scathing. “In those cases where Amnesty International has been able to determine the possible military target, it has found either that in fact it was not a military objective, that the devastating toll on civilians and civilian property was out of all proportion to any military advantage from the attack and/or that Israel failed to take necessary precautions to minimise harm to civilians.”
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Read more: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/israels-air-strikes-on-gaza-couldbe-war-crimes-9839918.html