Report, Amnesty International, 8 November 2006
"The killing this morning of 18 civilians in the Palestinian town of Beit Hanoun, victims of Israeli shelling, was an appalling act, Amnesty International said today. The organization called for an immediate, independent investigation and for those responsible to be held accountable. It said previous Israeli investigations, such as that carried out into the killings of a Palestinian family on a beach in the Gaza Strip last June, had been seriously inadequate and failed to meet international standards for such investigations, which must be independent, impartial and thorough.
Those killed, most of whom were asleep in their beds when their homes were struck by shells fired by Israeli forces, included eight children. An Amnesty International delegate who visited the scene of the killings shortly after the attack was told that 15 of the victims were killed in the first strike and that three others were killed by a second shell as they raced to help the dead and injured.
"This terrible act follows a renewed upsurge in killings of Palestinians since Israel forces launched their latest military operation into the Gaza Strip on 2 November," said Malcolm Smart, Director of Amnesty International's Middle East and North Africa programme. "Israeli actions during this entire operation have been marked by nothing less than reckless disregard for the lives of Palestinian civilians, over 20 of whom had been killed even before this morning's tragedy."
Amnesty International condemns all attacks on unarmed civilians and is calling on the Israeli authorities to establish independent investigations into every incident in which Palestinian civilians were killed or injured by Israeli forces, and to bring to justice those responsible for human rights violations.
As Israeli forces began their siege of Beit Hanoun, one senior officer, Lieutenant Colonel Yarom, said that troops had been instructed to avoid causing civilian casualties. Four days into the operation, in face of a rising toll of deaths and injuries among Palestinian civilians, Israel's Prime Minister Ehud Olmert declared: "Those Palestinians who have been wounded were mostly armed, but, to our regret,they are using innocent people as human shields, resulting in the injury of uninvolved civilians as well".
The information gathered by Amnesty International delegates currently in the Gaza Strip contradicts this, however, and indicates that at least half of those killed, including at least two women and several children, were unarmed bystanders not involved in the confrontations. The pattern is the same for those injured as a result of Israeli force air strikes and artillery shelling."
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