Amnesty International has not yet been able to get delegates into the Gaza Strip during the current hostilities, although the organization has requested permission from the Israeli authorities for entry via the Erez crossing and from the Egyptian authorities for entry via the Rafah crossing. We continue to press both authorities, directly and via intermediaries, to allow Amnesty International delegates and other international human rights organizations immediate access to the Gaza Strip.
In the meantime, Amnesty International is working with trusted contacts in the Gaza Strip to take testimonies by phone from eyewitnesses to particular attacks and family members of individuals who have been killed, and to collect photographic and video evidence for munitions experts outside of Gaza to examine. The organization is closely monitoring statements on the ongoing hostilities and particular attacks by both the Israeli authorities and Palestinian armed groups. Amnesty International is also using information from Palestinian and Israeli human rights organizations, as well international NGOs and UN organizations with staff on the ground in Gaza, to help identify patterns of violations and cross-check particular incidents.
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Israeli forces have carried out attacks [since Israel launched Operation “Protective Edge” on 8 June 2014] that have killed hundreds of civilians, including through the use of precision weaponry such as drone-fired missiles, and attacks using munitions such as artillery, which cannot be precisely targeted, on very densely populated residential areas, such as Shuja’iyyeh. They have also directly attacked civilian objects. Thousands of homes across the Gaza Strip, several medical facilities, and non-military governmental buildings have been destroyed or badly damaged. Statements by the Israeli military and politicians that they consider the homes of people associated with Hamas, including the homes of political leaders, to be legitimate targets indicate that Israel has adopted targeting rules that do not conform to international humanitarian law, and could be evidence that at least some of the attacks on civilian homes are deliberate policy. Although the Israeli authorities claim to be warning civilians in Gaza, a consistent pattern has emerged that their actions do not constitute an “effective warning” under international humanitarian law. Increasing reports that medics trying to evacuate civilians, workers trying to repair damaged water and sanitation infrastructure, and journalists are coming under fire, killing and injuring some of them, are another very serious concern. Direct attacks on civilians and civilian objects, as well as indiscriminate and disproportionate attacks that are intentional and kill or injure civilians constitute war crimes.
Israeli attacks have caused mass displacement of Palestinian civilians within the Gaza Strip. As of 23 July, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) reported that over 140,000 internally displaced people were sheltering in schools run by the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), and thousands of others were in Ministry of Education schools or with relatives. The UN has reported that an UNRWA school sheltering displaced people in the al-Maghazi refugee camp in central Gaza was shelled by Israeli forces on at least two occasions, with at least one child injured. Another UN school sheltering displaced families in Beit Hanoun in northern Gaza was struck on 24 July, killing at least 15 civilians and injuring many others, and the UN has called for an immediate investigation.
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Effective advance warning to civilians is only one of the prescribed precautions in attack aimed at minimizing harm to civilians. When Israeli forces have given warning, key elements of effective warning have been missing, including timeliness, informing civilians where it is safe to flee, and providing safe passage and sufficient time to flee before an attack. There also have been reports of lethal strikes launched too soon after a warning to spare civilians. In any event, issuing a warning does not absolve an attacking force of its obligations to spare civilians, including by taking all other necessary precautions, doing everything feasible to verify the target is in fact a military objective, cancelling or suspending an attack if it becomes clear that it would be disproportionate, and choosing means and methods of attack that would minimise the risk to civilians and damage to civilian objects. Additionally, Israel’s continuing military blockade on the Gaza Strip and the fact that, since the start of the current hostilities, the Rafah crossing has mostly been closed by the Egyptian authorities, mean that civilians in Gaza cannot flee to neighbouring countries.
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During the current hostilities, Hamas spokespeople have reportedly urged residents in some areas of the Gaza Strip not to leave their homes after the Israeli military dropped leaflets and made phone calls warning people in the area to evacuate. However, in light of the lack of clarity in many of the Israeli warnings on safe routes for civilians to evacuate, the lack of shelters or other safe places in the Gaza Strip for them to go to, and numerous reports of civilians who did heed the warnings and flee doing so under Israeli fire, such statements by Hamas officials could have been motivated by a desire to avoid further panic. In any case, public statements referring to entire areas are not the same as directing specific civilians to remain in their homes as “human shields” for fighters, munitions, or military equipment. Furthermore, international humanitarian law is clear that even if officials or fighters from Hamas or Palestinian armed groups associated with other factions did in fact direct civilians to remain in a specific location in order to shield military objectives from attacks, all of Israel’s obligations to protect these civilians would still apply. Flechettes are 3.5cm-long steel darts, sharply pointed at the front, with four fins at the rear. Between 5,000 and 8,000 of these darts are packed into shells which are generally fired from tanks. The shells explode in the air and scatter the flechettes in a conical pattern over an area about 300m by 100m. Flechettes are designed to be used against massed infantry attacks or squads of troops in the open, and obviously pose a very high risk to civilians when fired in densely populated residential areas.
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Amnesty International has not yet been able to verify particular cases during the current hostilities, but has previously documented Israeli forces’ use of flechette rounds in the Gaza Strip, resulting in the killing of civilians, including children. For example, during Operation “Cast Lead”, Amnesty International found that Israeli forces used tank shells packed with thousands of flechettes on at least five occasions between 4 and 9 January 2009, in the north of Gaza and in a village south of Gaza City, killing several civilians, including a child, a woman and a paramedic. Flechettes are not specifically prohibited by international humanitarian law per se.
Amnesty International
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