In what appears to be retaliation against Palestinian armed factions, Israeli forces are mass-killing civilians in the Gaza Strip and subjecting them to collective punishment, said Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor in a statement.Within a few hours of a single night, Israeli armed forces killed approximately 70 children inside their homes. Israel is clearly violating international humanitarian law by employing weapons of enormous destructive power against Gaza Strip residents; residential buildings came crashing down on their inhabitants, resulting in a significant number of casualties among civilians, including children.On Sunday evening and during the early hours of Monday morning, the Israeli army launched hundreds of air strikes against residential neighborhoods and multi-story inhabited buildings. According to Euro-Med Monitor’s preliminary data, 22 residential buildings were leveled directly onto the civilians inside of them on the morning of 9 October. The Israeli airstrikes have killed all or most of
the members of approximately 18 Gazan families.According to the Euro-Med Monitor team in Gaza, Israel appears to be using thermobaric weaponry (vacuum bombs) in its attack, the effects of which are felt by all residents in the vicinity. These bombs have tremendous destructive power and the ability to level multi-story buildings. Additionally, several testimonies which Euro-Med Monitor has yet to verify claim that the Israeli army used tightly controlled white phosphorus munitions in areas in the southern Gaza Strip.Initial estimates indicate that more than 40,000 families have been displaced from various areas of the Gaza Strip, escaping the violent attacks, while the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) reported that about 174,000 people sought refuge in 83 of its schools and shelters in the Gaza Strip. Under the pretext that it had a tunnel underground, Israel even launched an airstrike on a UNRWA school housing over 225 people.According to an Israeli army spokesman, the Isr
aeli Air Force has dropped over a thousand tons of bombs on Gaza since the attack began. Israeli naval forces also took part in bombing various areas near the Gaza coast.Israeli army forces issuing ‘warnings’ via phone calls and text messages, or by ‘tapping the roof’ with drone missiles with limited destructive power, is insufficient to protect Palestinian civilians and does not absolve Israel of responsibility for the large number of civilian casualties, said Euro-Med. Mass killings, and burying residents beneath the rubble of their own homes, are examples of Israeli bombing policy that disregards the principles of necessity and proportionality, it added.In the form of retaliation and collective punishment, Israeli forces deliberately target civilian objects to inflict widespread casualties and destruction, including material and human losses, said Euro-Med Monitor. This violates international humanitarian law and the Geneva Conventions (1949) and amounts to a war crime under the Rome Statute of the Interna
tional Criminal Court.’Even in cases of military necessity, Israel must adhere to provisions of international humanitarian law, which prohibits ‘preventive’ damage to property–that is, damage done before the danger has been [properly understood by residents] –and the destruction of property to achieve deterrence, instill fear in civilians, or retaliate against them,’ said Euro-Med Monitor’s Chief Operating Officer Anas Jerjawi.Jerjawi explained that Article 33 of the Fourth Geneva Convention states, ‘Collective penalties and likewise all measures of intimidation or of terrorism are prohibited…Reprisals against protected persons and their property are prohibited’.’Israel’s policy of targeting and demolishing civilian homes constitutes collective punishment against the residents of the Gaza Strip, which violates international humanitarian law,’ he stated.
Source: Palestine news and Information Agency – WAFA