Rights org: "Fog of war" no cover for Gaza killings

[ProgressiveMuslim]

Report, Al-Haq, 19 May 2008



As a Palestinian human rights organization dedicated to the promotion and protection of human rights in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT), Al-Haq is compelled yet again to raise the specter of Israel's continuing disregard for the customary international humanitarian law principles of distinction and proportionality. The incursion on 14 May 2008 into 'Izbet 'Abed Rabba, in the occupied Gaza Strip provides clear examples of the impact on civilians of Israel's consistent willful misinterpretation of its obligations under international humanitarian law.

On Wednesday, 14 May 2008, at approximately 8:00am, 15 Israeli tanks entered the village of 'Izbet 'Abed Rabba, west of Beit Hanoun and east of Jabaliya refugee camp in the Gaza Strip, with aerial cover provided by the Israeli Air Force. Upon entry to the village, Israeli ground forces engaged in random gun fire despite not being fired upon. At approximately 9:15 am, 17-year-old Hamdi Salemeh Khader was riding his bicycle on al-Karama Road near the local cement factory when he was shot twice (once in the shoulder and once in the upper right quadrant of the chest) by machine gun fire emanating from the tanks, killing him instantly. The distance between Hamdi and the tanks was approximately 500 meters at the time they fired upon him. Further, the topography of the land in this part of the Gaza Strip is flat and unobstructed by buildings. As such the visibility for the tank commanders, when coupled with surveillance provided by aerial cover, must be assumed to have been definitive, providing a clear image of Hamdi on his bicycle, unarmed and presenting no threat to Israeli forces.

By 9:50am the Israeli occupying forces had begun to encounter Palestinian armed resistance to the incursion in the form of gunfire. Between 10:15am and 11:10am when the Israeli forces withdrew, four tank shells were fired towards Jabaliya refugee camp in quick succession from 1-1.5 kilometers outside of the camp. Two tank shells were fired at a combatant in a residential neighborhood east of the camp, killing him as well as an unarmed 19-year-old civilian bystander, Ibrahim Hasan Salah, who was walking to school. Another shell fell inside the densely populated camp next to the house of Baker Muhammed al-Jamal, the shrapnel from the blast injuring 69-year-old Zeina Muhammad al-Jamal and her daughter, Siham. The last shell penetrated the house of Ghassan Mahmoud Abu-Habal inside the camp without detonating, leaving behind a dangerous unexploded ordinance and damage to the house at the shell's entry point.


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http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article9551.shtml