Amnesty says Israeli response to Hamas strikes disproportionate

Both Hamas and Israel were involved in war crimes during the recent fighting in Gaza, says Amnesty

AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL was among first independent observers to gain access to Gaza during the closing stages of the recent conflict. Their report just published is unequivocal in its condemnation of the indiscriminate firing of Grad and Qassam rockets by Hamas and other Palestinian factions into Israel.

According to Amnesty, the improvised Qassam rockets consist of “crude, rusty . . . 120mm pipes about 1.5 metres long with fins welded on to them . . . hold[ing] about five kilograms of explosives as well as shrapnel in the form of nails, bolts, or round metal sheets which rip into pieces on impact”.

The report logs the 643 rocket attacks on Israel by Palestinian militants between December 27th and January 11th last. Amnesty names the three Israeli citizens, Beber Vaknin, Irit Sheetret and Bedouin Hani al-Mahdi, killed in the first three days of these attacks between December 27th and 29th.

The indiscriminate firing of such rockets – clearly designed to kill and maim – at population centres such as Sderot and Ashkelon represents clear breaches of the Geneva conventions which explicitly prohibit the inappropriate use or modification of weapons or the targeting of civilians and civilian objects.

According to the report: “Amnesty International has repeatedly called on Hamas and all other Palestinian armed groups in Gaza to stop firing indiscriminate rockets against towns and villages in southern Israel and continues to do so.”

The Israeli response to these indiscriminate rocket attacks is examined in similar forensic detail within Amnesty’s report. In terms of proportionality, the casualty statistics for Palestinian civilians are stark.

According to Amnesty: “In the three weeks following the start of the Israeli military offensive on 27th December, Israeli forces killed more than 1,300 Palestinians in Gaza, including more than 300 children and many other civilians, and injured over 5,000 other Palestinians, again including many civilians.”

The report concludes that “some of the Israeli bombardments and other attacks were directed at civilians or civilian buildings within the Gaza Strip; others were disproportionate or indiscriminate”.

The report adds: “Amnesty International has found indisputable evidence that Israeli forces used white phosphorus which has a highly incendiary effect, in densely-populated residential areas in Gaza.”

In summary, Amnesty states quite simply: “Direct attacks on civilians and civilian objects, disproportionate attacks and indiscriminate attacks are war crimes.”

The report examines in detail the misuse of conventional arms by the IDF, the Israeli Defence Forces, during the conflict.

This analysis includes the misuse of anti-tank mines, artillery and mortars within Gaza by IDF troops. Amnesty investigators recovered and photographed a vast array of Israeli and US manufactured anti-tank mines, spent shell-casings and mortar tail-fins scattered through Palestinian homes, UN schools and in the administrative centre and headquarters of UNRWA in Gaza.

Amnesty’s experts also recovered and examined the remnants and fragments of US manufactured air-launched missiles, rockets and guided bomb units – again scattered indiscriminately through heavily-populated residential districts, UN schools and other UN installations.

The misuse of such weapons systems by the IDF – all of them complex crew-served weapons systems or high-tech systems aboard Israeli aircraft – comprises evidence of a systematic and systemic attempt on the part of the general staff of the IDF to terrorise Gaza’s civilian population. Significantly, the use of such weapons systems in a co-ordinated manner by any military formation cannot be explained away as the result of individual actions on the part of inexperienced frontline troops. Nor can the wholesale misuse of such weapons systems in built-up areas be blamed on the misguided on-the-spot decisions of individual Israeli commanders.

The combined arms nature of the protracted Israeli onslaught on an area inhabited by 1.5 million civilians – 48 per cent of whom were children under the age of 15 – on an objective military analysis, appears to provide clear evidence of war crimes on the part of Israel’s general staff.

The evidence gathered by Amnesty on the use of non-conventional weapons by the IDF in Gaza is very disturbing. Its report contains photographs of US manufactured 155mm white phosphorous shells found in and around UN schools and other installations in Gaza. It also details the use of Flechette tank shells by IDF troops in the densely-populated streets of Gaza. A Flechette is a 4cm metal dart designed to rip and tear human flesh.

According to Amnesty’s expert report, the IDF field-tested new non-conventional weapons systems including an air-launched missile that releases lethal cube-shaped shrapnel capable of penetrating the walls and roofs of dwellings, offices and even hardened bomb-shelters. According to Amnesty, on detonation such missiles release hundreds of tiny sharpened metal cubes each between 2mm and 4mm square in size.

In response to their findings, Amnesty concludes that both Hamas and the Israeli military authorities are guilty of war crimes.

While military analysts have come to accept breaches of the Geneva conventions on the part of militant groups such as Hamas, the sheer scale, premeditation and prosecution of war crimes by the Israeli general staff in Gaza beggars belief.

In concluding its report, Amnesty International makes two simple demands. One, that the United Nations Security Council establish an immediate independent investigation into these allegations of war crimes by all sides to the conflict and that those found responsible be brought to justice.

Secondly, Amnesty calls on the international community to impose a full and comprehensive arms embargo on both Hamas and the Israeli Defence Forces.

Dr Tom Clonan is the Irish Times security analyst. He lectures in the school of media at the Dublin Institute of Technology.