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‘Double tapping’ in Gaza
By Jamie Stern-Weiner
Source: New Left Project
January 27, 2015
Physicians for Human Rights-Israel (PHR) has just published an important report on Operation Protective Edge (8 July-26 August, 2014), Israel’s assault on Gaza that killed more than 2,100 Palestinians, including nearly 1,500 civilians and more than 500 children. PHR’s fact-finding mission, which comprised eight independent international forensic and medical experts, is the only one to date to have been granted access to Gaza by Israel and Egypt—subsequent delegations from Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and the UN Human Rights Council were repeatedly denied entry.
PHR sought to accumulate evidence as to the causes and patterns of injuries suffered; attacks on medical teams and facilities; evacuation of civilians, the dead and the wounded; the impact of the conflict on Gaza’s healthcare system overall; and longer-term public health impacts of the offensive (e.g. rehabilitation of survivors). Its findings were based on several field trips to Gaza during and after the offensive; interviews with 68 patients and examination of their wounds and available medical files; visits to sites where reported incidents took place; 370 photos of the deceased from the morgue at Gaza’s Shifa hospital; and interviews with other relevant individuals (for instance, World Health Organisation officials). The report’s authors adopt a cautious and professional tone but describe the stuff of nightmares.
Findings
Serious violations of international law including ‘heavy and unpredictable bombardments of civilian neighbourhoods in a manner that failed to discriminate between legitimate targets and protected populations and caused widespread destruction of homes and property’. These ‘must have entailed approval from top-level decision-makers in the Israeli military and/or government’. Other violations included denial of medical care to injured civilians; attacks on medical facilities and rescuers; firing on a group of civilians waving white flags; execution of a civilian at short range; human shielding; and cruel and/or inhuman treatment of detainees.
No safe place: patient interviews revealed a consistent picture of people being ‘injured or killed while in, or very close to, their homes’.
Full article: https://zcomm.org/znetarticle/double-tapping-in-gaza/