Amnesty has accused the Israeli army of showing shocking disregard for civilian lives in the Gaza Strip pounding streets infrastructure and buildings and killing civilians on a mass scale describing its practices as “war crimes.”
In a statement released on Monday Amnesty International said it documented “unlawful Israeli attacks including indiscriminate attacks which caused mass civilian casualties and must be investigated as war crimes.”
Amnesty explained that it “spoke to survivors and eyewitnesses analyzed satellite imagery and verified photos and videos to investigate air bombardments carried out by Israeli forces between 7 and 12 October which caused horrific destruction and in some cases wiped out entire families.”
“In each of these cases Israeli attacks violated international humanitarian law including by failing to take feasible precautions to spare civilians or by carrying out indiscriminate attacks that failed to distinguish between civilians and military objectives or by carrying out attacks that may have been directed against civilian objects” Agnès Callamard Amnesty International’s Secretary General said.
“For 16 years Israel’s illegal blockade has made Gaza the world’s biggest open-air prison – the international community must act now to prevent it becoming a giant graveyard. We are calling on Israeli forces to immediately end unlawful attacks in Gaza and ensure that they take all feasible precautions to minimize harm to civilians and damage to civilian objects. Israel’s allies must immediately impose a comprehensive arms embargo given that serious violations under international law are being committed” Callamard said.
“Our research points to damning evidence of war crimes in Israel’s bombing campaign that must be urgently investigated. Decades of impunity and injustice and the unprecedented level of death and destruction of the current offensive will only result in further violence and instability in Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories” Callamard underlined.
“It is vital that the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court urgently expedites its ongoing investigation into evidence of war crimes and other crimes under international law by all parties. Without justice and the dismantlement of Israel’s system of apartheid against Palestinians there can be no end to the horrifying civilian suffering we are witnessing” she added.
