Gaza, ALRAY - ‘Israel’ committed war crimes against civilians in its latest May offensive on besieged Gaza Strip, said Amnesty International on Tuesday.
The human rights organization added that ‘Israel’ unlawfully destroyed Palestinian homes, often without military necessity, in what amounts to a form of collective punishment against the civilian population.
It indicated that ‘Israel’ also conducted apparently disproportionate air strikes which killed and injured Palestinian civilians, including children.
The Amnesty International investigated nine Israeli airstrikes that resulted in the killing of civilians and in the damage and destruction of residential buildings in the Gaza Strip.
“Three separate attacks on the first night of bombing on 9 May, in which precision-guided bombs targeted three senior Al-Quds Brigades commanders, killed 10 Palestinian civilians, and injured at least 20 others, it said.
It pointed out that the bombs were launched into densely populated urban areas at 2am when families were sleeping at home, which suggests that those who planned and authorized the attacks anticipated – and likely disregarded – the disproportionate harm to civilians.
It considered that intentionally launching disproportionate attacks, a pattern Amnesty International has documented in previous Israeli operations, is a war crime.
“That we have been documenting the same patterns of unlawful killings and destruction over and over again is an indictment of the international community’s failure to hold Israel accountable, said Heba Morayef, Middle East and North Africa Regional Director at Amnesty International.”
She added that Israel’s impunity for the war crimes it repeatedly commits against Palestinians, and for its cruel ongoing 16-year illegal blockade of the Gaza Strip, emboldens further violations and makes injustice chronic.
“The root cause of this unspeakable violence is Israel’s system of apartheid. This system must be dismantled, the blockade of the Gaza Strip immediately lifted, and those responsible for the crime of apartheid, war crimes and other crimes under international law must be held to account,” Morayef said.
