RIGHTS GROUP: ISRAELI OFFENSIVE KILLED MOSTLY CIVILIANS

COMMENTARY ARCHIVES, 10 Sep 2009

CNN

A human rights group says more than half of the Palestinians killed during Israel’s three-week offensive against Hamas in Gaza earlier this year were civilians, contradicting an Israeli military claim.

A human rights group says more than half of the Palestinians killed during Israel’s three-week offensive against Hamas in Gaza earlier this year were civilians, contradicting an Israeli military claim.

Earlier this year, Jaber Wishah, a deputy director for PCHR, told CNN that Israel’s decision to classify police officers as combatants is illegal.

"Such classification constitutes a willful violation of the principle of ‘distinction,’ which is a key component of customary international law. This raises serious doubts about the accuracy of the figures published by the Israelis," he said.

B’tselem said the death toll numbers raised "grave concerns that Israel breached fundamental principle of international humanitarian law" and the group urged the Jewish state to conduct "independent and credible investigation."

In a written statement, the Israeli military said the B’tselem report "is not based on fact or on accurate statistics" and that the group "does not have the tools, nor the intelligence capabilities with which it can within a necessary degree of confidence know the causes of death or the affiliations of these casualties."

Since the end of Operation Cast Lead, the Israeli government has consistently said that it went to great lengths to minimize civilian deaths and has blamed civilian deaths on Hamas, which it alleges used Gaza’s civilians as human shields to launch attacks against Israel.

The Israel Defense Forces said in April that its forces "operated in accordance with international law" during the operation, but there were a few incidents in which "intelligence or operational errors" occurred.

According to a statement posted on IDF’s Web site in April, Israeli investigations "revealed a very small number of incidents in which intelligence or operational errors took place during the fighting. These unfortunate incidents were unavoidable and occur in all combat situations, in particular of the type which Hamas forced on the IDF, by choosing to fight from within the civilian population."

Thirteen Israelis were killed during the three weeks of Operation Cast Lead.

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