Amnesty International has said that there is a possibility that war crimes were committed during the fighting that took place between Israel and Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip during the last month.
The results of the study conducted by the human rights organization indicate that the Israeli military carried out air operations that resulted in the deaths of a disproportionately high number of Palestinian civilians.
In addition to this, it asserts that rocket fire from the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) was responsible for the deaths of civilians in both Israel and Palestine.
Amnesty International has submitted a petition to the International Criminal Court requesting that they conduct an inquiry.
The Israel Defence Forces have said that they behaved within the parameters of international law and that they took efforts to safeguard persons even though they were not required to do so.
A representative for the People’s Institute for Justice (PIJ) said that the organization viewed the Amnesty report favorably.
The most recent outbreak of cross-border violence started on May 9 and lasted until May 15, when it was brought to an end by a ceasefire mediated by Egypt. During that time, 34 Palestinians and 1 Israeli were killed.
Midnight air strikes carried out by Israeli planes resulted in the deaths of three senior officials of the PIJ’s military wing as well as 10 civilians, including members of the militants’ families and neighbors.
During the subsequent operation, the IDF claims that its planes hit approximately 400 PIJ military installations and killed three more senior officials of the organization’s military wing. The Israeli Defence Forces accused the Palestinian Islamic Jihad of firing hundreds of rockets and mortars into Israeli territory the previous week.
Amnesty International investigated nine separate assaults, three of which were carried out on the homes of PIJ officials.
According to the Israel Defence Forces (IDF), “numerous efforts were made to minimize harm to the civilian population in the Gaza Strip.” These efforts included delaying or even scrapping operations when the unexpected presence of civilians was discovered.
Amnesty International said that Israel’s assault on Gaza “failed to meet the exceptions under which attacking homes and other civilian objects would be justified.”
On May 13, a bomb ripped through a building in the Jabaliya refugee camp that was four stories tall and housed forty-two members of the Nabhan family.
Amnesty International discovered no evidence that the building had been used to store weapons or any other kind of military equipment, and it was verified that rockets had not been launched from the vicinity.
According to Heba Morayef, who is the director of the Middle East office of Amnesty International, “We heard vivid accounts of bombs obliterating homes, of fathers digging their little girls out from under the rubble,” and of an adolescent who was severely injured while resting in bed with a teddy bear.
If those guilty are not brought to justice, there is a strong possibility that these horrifying scenes may occur again, which is an even more dreadful prospect.
“The Israel Defence Forces deployed a variety of measures, including phone calls and the ‘roof-knocking’ routine, to ensure that inhabitants of buildings were evacuated several hours before assaults.
These buildings were not attacked until all of the civilians had already evacuated the area.
The Palestinian Islamic Jihad responded to the strikes carried out by Israel by firing around 1,400 rockets into the country. As a result, tens of thousands of Israeli citizens were forced to take shelter in subterranean bunkers.
After entering Israeli territory, the Israeli Defence Force believes that its missile defense systems were able to stop 430 of the incoming projectiles.
An Israeli woman was killed in her home in the city of Rehovot, while a Palestinian laborer was killed while working on a building site in the nearby city of Shokeda by rocket fire from Gaza.
According to information provided by Amnesty International, three Palestinian civilians, including two children, were killed in Gaza by missiles that failed to hit their intended target.
The report states that the young people were on al-Sahaba Street in Gaza City in the afternoon of May 10 when the area was targeted by a missile, which resulted in the deaths of everyone who was there.
Even though the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) denied responsibility for the incident at the time and blamed it on Israeli aircraft, witnesses told a researcher that members of PIJ retrieved missile debris shortly after the event had a place.
