Amnesty slammed for report on Gaza incursion

ArticleData Array ( [Article] => Array ( [article_id] => 1043897 [headline] => Amnesty slammed for report on Gaza incursion [abstract] => Both Israel and Hamas have been criticised for their conduct during the recent conflict in Gaza by human rights group Amnesty International.
[keywords] => amnesty, israel, palestinian, hamas, gaza [content] =>

Israeli forces killed hundreds of Palestinian civilians and destroyed thousands of Gaza Strip homes in attacks that amounted to war crimes, Amnesty International charged on Thursday, in the first in-depth human rights group report on the recent conflict in Gaza.

Amnesty called on Israel to publicly pledge not to use artillery, white phosphorus and other imprecise weapons in densely populated areas.

And it urged Gaza's Hamas rulers to stop rocket fire against Israeli civilians - attacks it also described as war crimes.

Report 'unbalanced'

Israel and Hamas both denounced the report as unbalanced.

Israel charged that Amnesty "succumbed to the manipulations of the Hamas terror organisation" and Hamas accused the rights group of downplaying the scale of the destruction Israel left behind.

Amnesty - which first accused Israel of war crimes shortly after the fighting ended on January 18 - said "disturbing questions" remain about why high-precision weapons like tank shells and air-delivered bombs and missiles "killed so many children and other civilians".

The group deplored Israel's use of less-precise artillery shells and highly incendiary white phosphorous in built-up areas. It also accused Israeli forces of using Palestinians as "human shields" and frequently blocking civilians from receiving medical care and humanitarian aid.

Targeting civilians criticised

The pattern of Israeli attacks and the high number of civilian casualties "showed elements of reckless conduct, disregard for civilian lives and property and a consistent failure to distinguish between military targets and civilians and civilian objects," Amnesty International charged.

More than 1,400 Palestinians, including more than 900 civilians, were killed during the three-week offensive, according to Gaza health officials and human rights groups.

 Israel, which launched the incursion to halt years of rocket and mortar attacks on its southern communities, puts the death toll closer to 1,100. It says the vast majority of the dead were militants, though it has refused requests to provide a list of the dead.

Amnesty says some 300 children and hundreds of other unarmed civilians were among the dead. Thirteen Israelis also were killed, including three civilians who died by rocket fire.

Rocket fire 'unbearable reality'

The Israeli military rejected the report's findings, saying it did not properly recognise "the unbearable reality of nine years of incessant and indiscriminate rocket fire on the citizens of Israel".

The report, the military added, ignored the military's efforts to minimise civilian casualties in a battlefield where Hamas used residential areas, medical facilities, schools and mosques as cover to stage attacks.

"It presents a distorted view of the laws of war that does not comply with the rules implemented by democratic states battling terror," the military said in a statement.

The 117-page Amnesty report also denounced Hamas for firing rockets into Israel.

"Such unlawful attacks constitute war crimes and are unacceptable," Rovera said.

Hamas 'resisting occupation'

Hamas called a news conference on Thursday to denounce the report.

"The report equated the victim and the executioner and denied our people's right to resist the occupation," said spokesman Fawzi Barhoum.

 "The report ignores the scale of destruction and serious crimes committed by the occupation in Gaza ... and provides a misleading description in order to reduce the magnitude of the Israeli crimes."

The report was based on physical evidence and testimony that a team of four researchers, including a military expert, gathered from dozens of attack sites in Gaza and southern Israel during and after the incursion.

It broke little new ground, concentrating on issues, cases and problems that have been dealt with in other frameworks.


 

[start_date] => 02 July 2009 | 08:03:31 PM [comments_allowed] => 1 [source] => AP [commentCount] => 0 [video] => [image] => Array ( [caption] => Both Hamas and the Israeli army have been slammed in an Amnesty International report into the recent conflict in Gaza (Getty Images) [useRegularImage] => 1 [media_library_id] => 59152 [site_id] => 1 [media_library_group_id] => 0 [media_usage_id] => 0 [filename] => site_1_rand_928087764_gaza_ruins_family_b_2101_getty.jpg [title] => gaza_ruins_family_B_2101_getty_928087764 [description] => file:site_1_rand_928087764_gaza_ruins_family_b_2101_getty.jpg [type] => [height] => 338 [width] => 450 [source] => [video_hi] => [video_lo] => [section] => [display_order] => 0 [create_date] => 2009-01-21 06:28:28 [active] => 1 [media_usage] => Article Large [usageWidth] => 300 [usageHeight] => 225 ) [imagePath] => http://media.sbs.com.au/news/upload_media/ [audio] => [reporter] => [relatedLinks] => Array ( [2] => Array ( [id] => 1041701 [label] => UN mission hears of Gaza war horrors [display_order] => 0 [type] => Article ) [1] => Array ( [id] => 1041546 [label] => Palestinians 'barely surviving in Gaza' [display_order] => 0 [type] => Article ) [0] => Array ( [id] => 1041466 [label] => Gaza struggling to rebuild, six months on [display_order] => 0 [type] => Article ) ) [relatedArticles] => Array ( [0] => Array ( [article_id] => 1041466 [headline] => Gaza struggling to rebuild, six months on [abstract] => Six months after the Israeli offensive and two years into a blockade, Gazans are struggling to survive and sliding into despair according to the Red Cross.
[content] =>

Six months after the Israeli offensive and two years into a blockade, Palestinians in the Gaza Strip are struggling to survive and sliding into despair, the Red Cross has said.
  
"The people living there find themselves unable to rebuild their lives and are sliding ever deeper into despair," the International Committee of the Red Cross reported.
  
The report said that seriously ill patients were not getting the treatment they needed and thousands of Gazans whose homes were destroyed during Israel's 22-day military operation at the beginning of the year were still without shelter.
  
"The poorest residents in particular have exhausted their coping mechanisms and often have to sell off their belongings to be able to buy enough to eat," said Antoine Grand, head of the ICRC's sub-delegation in Gaza.
  
"Worst affected are the children, who make up more than half of Gaza's population," he added.
  
Israel imposed a blockade of Gaza in June 2007 when the Islamist movement Hamas, which is pledged to the Jewish state's destruction, took control of the Palestinian territory.
  
In late December last year, Israel launched an offensive in Gaza to stop Hamas from firing rockets into southern Israel, which claimed 12 Israeli lives.    Israeli air raids and tanks destroyed swathes of the coastal enclave and 1,400 Palestinians were killed, according to Palestinian emergency services.
  
The ICRC report said in the wake of the Israeli offensive essential water and sanitation infrastructure remain largely insufficient and that the equivalent of 28 Olympic-size swimming pools of basically untreated sewage is daily pumped into the Mediterranean Sea.
  
Some 4.5 billion dollars pledged by donor countries to rebuild Gaza is of little use if building supplies cannot get past the Israeli blockade, the ICRC said, calling for the lifting of restrictions on the movement of people and goods.
  
"Israel has the right to protect its population against attacks," said Grand. "But does that mean that 1.5 million people in Gaza do not have the right to live a normal life?"
  
The Geneva-based humanitarian organisation said Gaza urgently needed to import medical equipment and building supplies including cement and steel, and its farmers needed access to their land in the buffer zone and its fishermen should be allowed back into deeper waters.
  
The ICRC also called for political authorities and the armed groups in Gaza to take the necessary steps to help the civilians.
  
"Humanitarian action can be no substitute for the credible political steps that are needed to bring about the changes the population of Gaza needs," the ICRC said.

[content_type_id] => 3 [site_name] => World News Australia [articledate] => 29 June 2009 [articletime] => 29 June 2009 [display_order] => 0 ) ) [comments] => Array ( ) ) [winston] => test )