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Adalah, Al Mezan and Al Haq Submit New
Complaints and Demands to Israel for Criminal Investigations
into
Suspected War Crimes in Gaza
NEWS UPDATE
25 November 2009
· Criminally investigate the assassination of the former Interior
Minister in Gaza, Said Siam, in which 10 civilians were killed,
dozens injured, and neighboring buildings destroyed.
· Criminally investigate an air strike against the Salha family home
in Beit Lahiya, in which six people were killed after a “knock on
the roof” from the Israeli army.
· Criminally investigate the shelling of the Abu Eisha family’s home
in the Al-Naser neighborhood in Gaza City while 26 family members
were in the house, five of whom were killed.
· If Israel fails to comply with its legal responsibilities, the
organizations will emphasize the right of the victims to seek other
means of redress provided for by international law, to ensure that
those responsible for committing crimes against them are held
accountable.
· Adalah, Al Mezan and Al-Haq are examining other cases of suspected
Israeli war crimes in Gaza, and will continue to demand
investigations. They will continue to monitor whetherIsrael’s
investigations comply with international law.
Adalah, Al Mezan Center for Human Rights and Al-Haq are continuing
to submit complaints and demands for criminal investigations into
specific incidents of suspected war crimes during “Operation Cast
Lead” against Palestinians and their property in the Gaza Strip from
27 December 2008 – 18 January 2009. The complaints contain thorough
documentation of cases supported by testimonies from eyewitnesses,
and lists of the dead and wounded and the properties attacked.
The Israeli army has only recently begun to investigate the
complaints made by the three human rights organizations. However,
the investigations are not independent criminal investigations, and
have yet to result in convictions. According to the Israeli military,
the focus of these investigations is any “misconduct” by Israeli
soldiers as individuals outside the scope of any official
instructions and orders received, and not the policies and
strategies of the Israeli military operations, their implementation,
the size and type of weapons used, etc. Thus far, these
investigations seem primarily intended to ease international
pressure on the Israeli government and to relieve the army and its
command of the charges leveled against them, and to preclude
deliberation of these crimes in international fora.
The complaints submitted by Adalah, Al Mezan and Al-Haq follow
the clear recommendation made by the UN Fact-Finding Mission on the
Gaza Conflict, (“The Goldstone Mission”), which called on Israel to
open criminal investigations in cases of suspected war crimes and
breaches of international human rights law and international
humanitarian law.
The facts of the cases include grave breaches of international
humanitarian law, and strongly suggest that the Israeli army ignored
the presence of unarmed civilians when executing its military
operations. This type of conduct is sufficient to establish a war
crime. Civilians are afforded protection under international law and
their rights to life and property must be disrespected.
The human rights organizations’ new demands for criminal
investigations center around three separate events:
The assassination of the former Interior Minister in Gaza, Said Siam,
on 15 January 2009. Israeli war planes shelled a house where the
minister’s brother and his family lived, killing the minister, his
son, his brother and his brother’s wife, and his nephew. The attack
also resulted in the deaths of six civilians in neighboring
buildings, and the injury and maiming of dozens of others, in
addition to the destruction of many buildings. In the demand for
investigation, the human rights organizations stated thatthe
targeting of Siad Siam constitutes a war crime, regardless of
whether Israel considered him to be the leader of an “enemy
organization”, since he was not participating in hostilities at the
time he was assassinated by the Israeli military.
The air strike against the Salha family home in Beit Lahiya, at
around 3 am on 9 January 2009, resulting in the deaths of six
members of the family. In this incident, the military used a
procedure referred to as “a knock on the roof”, whereby a building
is hit with a relatively small rocket in order to alert its
residents of an impending strike and to abandon their homes. The
Salha family and their relatives who had taken refuge in their home
after the neighborhood they lived in had been bombed, were woken by
the sound of an explosion and the shaking of the house. Several
minutes later, before everyone had managed to escape, the Israeli
army fired another missile that destroyed the entire house. At the
moment of impact the homeowner’s wife and a number of children were
still inside the house, heading down the stairs towards the external
door. When the survivors of the shelling returned to see what had
happened, they found the remains of their family members scattered
around the home. From the eyewitness testimonies of neighbors and
Salha family members, it appears that the area had not previously
witnessed any military activity.
The shelling of the Abu Eisha family’s home in the Al-Naser
neighborhood in Gaza City at around 1 am on 5 January 2009. At the
time of the shelling, 26 family members of the family were in the
house. As a result of the bombing, five people were killed and the
remainder wounded. The bombing also damaged many neighboring homes
and injured many of their inhabitants. In this case, eyewitnesses
reported that the bombing was not preceded by any warning to the
residents and the region had not previously witnessed any military
activity.
In each of these cases, the targeting of houses and their
inhabitants without any clear military necessity or an effective
warning before the bombardment is equivalent to the bombing of
unarmed civilians who are protected under international
law.Furthermore the killing and injuring of such a great number of
civilians, in three separate events, demonstrates that the Israeli
military disregarded the presence of civilians at these locations
and disrespected their lives, in violation of international
humanitarian law and international norms, and specifically the
principles of proportionality and distinction between civilians and
combatants.
International law mandates that Israel investigate the practices of
its army during the planning and implementation of military
operations conducted within “Operation Cast Lead”, and that it hold
all of those implicated in international crimes or war crimes and
crimes against humanity accountable, regardless of their status.
http://www.mezan.org/en/details.php?id=9283&ddname=crimes&id2=9&id_dept=31&p=center |
