Israel committed war crimes with the “relentless and massive bombardment” of residential areas of Gaza that followed the capture of an Israeli soldier a year ago, a new Amnesty International report has claimed.
The attacks came after Hamas captured 23-year-old Lieutenant Hadar Goldin . In an attempt to prevent his capture, the IDF activated the Hannibal Directive — a planned response to a possible kidnap — and launched a bombardment of Rafah.
Published on Wednesday, the Amnesty report — ‘Black Friday’: Carnage in Rafah during 2014 Israel/Gaza conflict — claimed 135 Palestinian civilians were killed, including 75 children, following the August 1 incident last year.
A spokesman at the Israeli embassy in London said the report was "fundamentally flawed in its methodologies, in its facts, in its legal analysis and in its conclusions".
Philip Luther, Amnesty’s Middle East programme director, said: “There is strong evidence that Israeli forces committed war crimes in their relentless and massive bombardment of residential areas of Rafah in order to foil the capture, displaying a shocking disregard for civilian lives.
“They carried out a series of disproportionate or otherwise indiscriminate attacks, which they have completely failed to investigate independently.”
Mr Luther said Israeli forces appeared to have “thrown out the rule book, employing a ‘gloves off’ policy with devastating consequences”. The continuation of bombing raids after Lt Goldin’s death was confirmed on August 2 suggested the IDF “may in part have been motivated by a desire to punish the population of Rafah as revenge,” he added.
“The ferocity of the attack on Rafah shows the extreme measures Israeli forces were prepared to take to prevent the capture alive of one soldier – scores of Palestinian civilian lives were sacrificed for this single aim.”
Working with academics from Forensic Architecture, a research team based at Goldsmiths, University of London, Amnesty said it had assessed hundreds of satellite images and videos and compared them to eyewitness accounts.
The report is part of its online Gaza Project, evidence put together to mark the anniversary of Operation Protective Edge .
The Israeli spokesman said: "When one reads the report, the impression is given that the IDF was fighting against itself – as there is almost no mention of the military actions of Hamas and other Palestinian terrorist organisations.
"Despite all the buttons, links and videos, nowhere does Amnesty describe the heinous strategy of these terrorist organizations to embed their military operations within the civilian environment, and to fire at the IDF and Israel’s civilian population from behind the civilian population.
"The IDF – as the military of a democratic state committed to the rule of law – conducts all its operations in accordance with international law.
"Once again Amnesty has shown its compulsive obsessiveness towards Israel, by rehashing already existing claims and complaints into a smoke and mirrors website."
