Amnesty Report Accuses Israel of War Crimes and Condemns Palestinian Rocket Fire

A damning 49-page report, which includes survivors’ testimonials collected by Amnesty International, charges both the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) and Palestinian armed groups with violating international law during the recent war in Gaza and says that the IDF acted with “callous indifference” to civilians in airstrikes that destroyed entire families in homes. Most of the evidence the NGO published in its report last week refers to eight specific attacks carried out by Israeli military forces on the Palestinian territory in which over a hundred people, most of whom were under 18 years of age, were killed.

The New York Times:

The Amnesty report, the most detailed yet on the war by an international group, calls for both Israel and the Palestinians to join the International Criminal Court so it can prosecute cases from this summer, and urges Israel to participate in an inquiry by the United Nations Human Rights Council that it has so far boycotted out of concern for predetermined bias. … [V]irtually all of its 49 pages were devoted to eyewitness testimony and expert analysis of weaponry in eight Israeli attacks that killed 104 people, 59 of them under 18. Amnesty found evidence of military targets in at least four of the cases, but argued that these were nonetheless “grossly disproportionate.”

Among the victims, the report said, were people who had fled their homes after Israeli warnings of danger there, and were staying with relatives after having found no space at United Nations shelters. Though the Israeli military phoned Gaza residents or dropped lighter missiles — called “a knock on the roof” — to warn of some impending bombings, Amnesty said it found no such notice given in these cases. …

Amnesty said its employees had been barred by Israel from entering Gaza since 2012, and thus relied on two fieldworkers who visited the site of each bombing multiple times. Military experts enlisted by Amnesty reviewed photographs and videos from the sites, according to the report, and surmised that 1- and 2-ton bombs were used.

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—Posted by Natasha Hakimi Zapata