Amnesty International calls for independent investigation into killings by Israeli Forces

[Scurrilous]

<snip>

"Amnesty International is again calling on the Israeli government to end reckless attacks by its forces on populated areas and to order an immediate, independent investigation into yesterday`s strikes in Gaza which killed six Palestinians, including four children under five and their mother. An investigation by the Israeli army, as offered by Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, will not meet international standards as a thorough, independent and impartial investigation.

The attack on 28 April appears to have been carried out with reckless disregard for the lives of local residents, including children, uninvolved in hostilities between Palestinian militants and Israeli forces. It was the latest in a pattern of such attacks, which are unacceptable. So far this year, some 335 Palestinians have been killed in attacks by Israeli forces. Most were killed in Gaza and more than half of them were unarmed civilians taking no part in hostilities and offering no threat to Israelis. In the same period, 23 Israelis, including 14 civilians, were killed in attacks by Palestinian armed groups.

Amnesty International is also calling on Palestinian armed groups to cease launching attacks from populated areas and against Israeli civilians.

The Israeli attack on 28 April in Beit Hanoun killed five members of the Abu Mu’atteq family - four children under five and their mother, Maysir Abu Mu’atteq, aged about 40 - as they sat down to have breakfast at 8.15 in the morning. The area had apparently been surrounded since two hours earlier by about 20 armoured cars of the Israeli army. Minutes before the Mu`atteq family home was hit, an Israeli strike killed Ibrahim Hujuj, aged 20, who is reported to have been a member of a Palestinian armed group.

In recent weeks, other attacks by the Israeli army have killed scores of Palestinians, many of them unarmed civilians. On 16 April nine Palestinians reportedly uninvolved in hostilities - including six children - were killed, apparently by missiles fired from a helicopter, in Juhor al-Dik village. Shortly afterwards a Reuters cameraman, who had just left his car clearly marked “press” and “TV” to film an Israeli army tank, was killed by a shell fired from the tank. The shell, which contained “flèchettes” - thousands of steel darts - killed two others on the same road.

Between 28 February and 2 March more than 100 Palestinians, about half of them not involved in the fighting, were killed during Israeli incursions in the Gaza Strip, which - with 1.5 million people living there - is one of the most densely populated areas in the world. Many attacks were carried out with reckless force.

On 1 March, an Israeli plane bombed the Attallah family`s home at 5pm, killing six people and injuring six others. The targets of the attack are believed to have been the brothers Ibrahim Abdel Rahman and Khaled Abdel Rahman, members of a Palestinian armed group, but the attack was carried out with dangerous disregard for others present in the house who were not involved in the hostilities.

Amnesty International believes that Israel has clear obligations under international law to protect Palestinian civilians. It calls on the Israeli army never to use disproportionate or reckless force, including in densely populated areas where they endanger children and other unarmed civilians."

http://www.kibush.co.il/show_file.asp?num=26616

[LeftishBrit]

1. And quite right too- but let's not forget a few other Amnesty statements

http://www.amnesty.org.uk/news_details.asp?NewsID=15571

http://www.amnesty.org.uk/news_details.asp?NewsID=16779

http://www.amnesty.org.uk/news_details.asp?NewsID=17497

http://www.amnesty.org.uk/news_details.asp?NewsID=17691


Amnesty doesn't regard either side as perfect with regard to human rights. In fact, they don't regard any country or group as perfect with regard to human rights. I wish most countries were at least a bit more so!

[subsuelo]

2. Imagine that

Calling on both sides to cease the reckless bombings of civilians.

I wish there were more groups like Amnesty. Where human rights for everyone is taken into account.

[Scurrilous]

3. B'Tselem demands a criminal investigation into the killing of five members of the Abu Me'tiq family

<snip>

"B'Tselem has sent a letter to the Israeli army’s Judge Advocate General demanding that he open a Military Police investigation into the circumstances of the death of five members of the Abu Me'tiq family in Beit Hanun on 28 April. In its letter, B'Tselem points out that this investigation is required without regard to the inquiry currently underway by an investigating officer, and that it should also focus on the responsibility of the command echelon.

B'Tselem’s investigation indicates that an Israeli aircraft fired a missile at three armed Palestinians standing on a street in the northern section of Beit Hanun, wounding them and a nearby civilian. About a minute later, the aircraft fired a second missile, this one at a fourth armed man, who was about fifteen meters from where the first missile landed, and about one meter from the gate of the Abu Me'tiq family’s house. This missile killed the fourth armed man and the five members of the family.

In its letter, B'Tselem states that the material it has collected, including an analysis of the area, photographs of bodies and eyewitness accounts, raise doubt about the IDF Spokesperson’s contention that a secondary explosion is what killed the family. B'Tselem called on the IDF Spokesperson’s office to publish all the material in IDF hands that documents the incident, especially the UAV photos, which could prove or refute this claim.

However, regardless of the question whether there was a secondary explosion, B'Tselem contends that, under the circumstances, there is suspicion that the firing of the second missile breached the principles of discrimination and proportionality, pillars of the international humanitarian law. This is because the missile was fired at an armed man standing near the entrance of a residential dwelling, in a densely populated neighborhood. It was therefore highly likely that civilians would be in their homes at the time and that the blast would strike them, as indeed occurred."

http://www.btselem.org/english/Press_Releases/20080430.asp