Amnesty International: Israel Committed War Crimes
On November 5th, 2014, the human rights organization Amnesty International published a new report on the Israeli military actions in Gaza entitled Families Under the Rubble: Israeli Attacks on Inhabited Homes. In the report, Amnesty International documents eight cases of Israeli military action on Palestinian homes. In these cases, “…in which targeted Israeli attacks resulted in the deaths of at least 111 people, of whom at least 104 were civilians, including entire families, and destroyed civilian homes.” Regarding these eight cases, Amnesty International says that “[i]n 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. In all cases, no prior warning was given to the civilian residents to allow them to escape.”
Amnesty International does also say that in half of the cases, there was an individual who was part of a fighting group in the home. But they go on to explain that “even if a fighter or a military objective was indeed present (or thought to have been present), the loss of civilian lives, injury to civilians and damage to civilian objects appear disproportionate, that is, out of proportion to the likely military advantage of carrying out the attack, or otherwise indiscriminate” (5-6).
However, these sorts of attacks are far from the only ones carried out by the Israeli military. In fact, Amnesty International explains that “
These attacks fit into a broader pattern. In addition to the cases detailed in this report, Amnesty International has documented more than 12 other targeted attacks that caused the deaths of civilians, including children, and destroyed all or part of inhabited home. Most appear to have been aerial attacks conducted by manned aircraft. Looking more widely at Israeli attacks of different kinds, including attacks during heavy fighting in areas such as al-Shuja’iyeh and Khuza’a, the Israeli human rights organization B’Tselem listed 72 homes destroyed in the Gaza Strip in whole or in part with families inside them up until 11 August 2014. This destruction killed 547 people, of whom 125 were women under the age of 60, 250 were minors, and 29 were people over the age of 60″ (6). (Here is the link to the B’Tselem report).
Such a report points out the lack of carefulness carried out in the recent acts of aggression.
Again, as human rights activists, we must continue to call out every single human rights violation, and in this case, speak out against Israeli actions, and against Hamas’ actions. Both of these actors have continued attacks that have clearly killed thousands of citizens, and so many families have lost their children from their horrific crimes.
Individuals who have committed these actions must be held accountable in a court of law. Thus, given that Palestine has the ability to sign onto the Rome Statute, it will be interesting to see if they will do that. It seems that they are waiting to join the International Criminal Court, depending on if Israel will end their occupation of Palestine by November of 2016. I can imagine that they will not press on this issue until they introduce their United Nations Security Council resolution, possibly sometime this month (although the US will most likely vote against this resolution). But regardless if Palestinian leaders will call for ICC action, there needs to be a trial on every rights violation that is believed to have occurred by Israel and Hamas. Unfortunately, if Palestine does not join the Rome Statute, the ICC will not see the actions within their jurisdiction, since Israel nor Palestine have signed the Rome Statute. Furthermore, while it could be given jurisdiction through the United Nations Security Council), with the US having veto power on the UNSC, the likelihood of that happening is very low.
Again, we must speak out against every rights violation in this conflict (and of course elsewhere); all those who have committed crimes must be held accountable, as this conflict is continuing to cause great suffering amongst citizens.
