The Israeli government should conduct an immediate
and independent investigation into the deaths of
four civilians, including a Reuters cameraman and
two teenage boys, in Gaza on April 16, 2008,
Human Rights Watch said today. Human Rights
Watch's investigations at the site found
evidence suggesting that an Israeli tank
crew fired recklessly or deliberately at the
journalist's team.
"Israeli soldiers did not make sure they were aiming at a
military target before firing, and there is evidence
suggesting they actually targeted the journalists,"
said Joe Stork, Middle East director at Human Rights Watch.
"Israel should investigate these deaths and, if
crimes were committed, hold to account those responsible."
Fadel Shana'a, a 23-year-old cameraman employed by
Reuters, was killed as he was filming the tank close to
Gaza's border with Israel, southeast of Gaza City. Three
other persons were killed as they watched Shana'a
filming. The Palestinian Center for Human Rights
identified them as Ahmed 'Aaref Farajallah, 14,
Ghassan Khaled Abu 'Otaiwi, 17, and
Khalil Isma'il Dughmosh, 22.
Interviews conducted by Human Rights Watch with an
eyewitness to the shelling, a resident in a nearby village
and a journalist who arrived just after the attack, as well
as camera footage taken by Shana'a, indicate there was
no military activity by Palestinian militants at the scene
of the attack.
On April 16 around 5 p.m., Shana'a was driving with his
soundman, Wafa Abu Mizyed, to Johr el-Diek, a village on
the eastern edge of the Gaza Strip, to investigate reports
of shelling in the area, according to Abu Mizyed. They
drove an unarmored gray pickup truck, which, according to
Reuters and photographs of the scene, was marked "TV"
and "Press" in large colored letters.
On their way they passed an Israeli tank that was parked on
a hilltop a few hundred meters away. Once in Johr el-Diek,
they filmed a group of villagers injured by the fighting, and
then left the area by the same road, again
passing the Israeli tank. While there was some
machine-gun fire in the distance, Abu Mizyed told Human
Rights Watch, there was no shooting in their immediate
area at the time.
Abu Mizyed said they then decided to stop by the roadside
to take more video of the surrounding area. Shana'a was
wearing a flak jacket with "PRESS" printed in large blue
and white letters on the front. Footage from Shana'a's
camera shows an Israeli tank a few hundred meters away
firing a shell. About one second later, Shana'a's camera
goes black.
"Fadel set up his camera and the tripod and asked me to
push away some children who had gathered around us.
They were teens and there were no fighters or any shooting
there. While I was doing so, I heard a sound like 'boof,'"
Abu Mizyed told Human Rights Watch. "I looked towards
Fadel and found him lying on the ground and repeating the
Shehada (the Muslim declaration of faith). I was also injured
on my left hand. Fadel died. Another shell landed behind
the truck and injured me in my right hand and the waist.
I then ran towards the main road looking for help."
Photographs taken shortly after the incident by a local
journalist show teenagers Farajallah and Otaiwi lying dead
near the destroyed pickup truck.
Minutes after the tank shelling, three other journalists tried
to reach the area in an armored jeep. When they stopped
their vehicle, marked "Press" in large letters, and walked
towards the Reuters vehicle, they also came under tank fire.
Wissam Nassar, 23, a photographer for Ma'an news agency,
told Human Rights Watch: "We spotted a shell coming towards
us from down the street from where the Israeli incursion was
taking place... We pushed ourselves to
the ground when we saw the shell coming. It landed about five
meters behind the truck and exploded."
Evidence gathered from the road, and x-rays of the dead and
wounded, show the tank fired a flechette shell, which unleashes
hundreds of dart-like projectiles before the shell hits the
ground. Doctors in Gaza showed the media x-rays of
Shana'a's body, which showed several flechettes lodged in
his chest and legs. Several were embedded in his flak jacket.
Major Avital Leibovitz, a spokeswoman for the Israeli army,
told Human Rights Watch that the site of the incident "is the
same area in which three IDF soldiers were killed" about 11
hours earlier. However, she was unable to specify exactly
where the soldiers had died and how close that area had been
to where the Reuters cameraman was killed. "The matter is
being looked into," she said. "When we have come to a
conclusion we will share that information with Reuters."
Human Rights Watch said that the Israeli government
should commit to a full independent investigation into the
incident, the findings of which would be made public.
Three eyewitnesses interviewed separately by Human
Rights Watch said there were no hostilities at the time
in the immediate area where the cameraman was filming,
although there had been fighting earlier that day in Johr
el-Diek, which lies about 1.5 kilometers from the site
of the attack.
"The area where the journalist was killed was open and a
bit elevated," said Stork. "The Reuters truck was clearly
marked 'TV' and 'Press' and drove by the tank twice, so
it's hard to believe the Israeli tank crew didn't see the
pickup contained only journalists."
The laws of war, which apply to the armed hostilities in Gaza,
require that parties to the conflict do everything feasible to
verify that targets of attack are military objectives. Civilians,
including journalists covering a war zone, may never be
targeted. Anyone who deliberately or recklessly attacks
a civilian commits a war crime. Where there is evidence
that a war crime may have been committed, a state has
an obligation to investigate and, if appropriate, prosecute
the suspects.
Human rights groups in Israel and Palestine have long urged
the Israeli military to stop using flechette shells in Gaza
because they spread over a wide area and are thus more
likely to indiscriminately hit civilians. Flechettes are
razor-sharp 3.75mm darts released from canisters that
explode in mid-air and spray thousands of them in an
arc some 300-meters long and 90-meters wide.
"The use of flechette shells, with a wide 'kill radius,' increases
the chance of indiscriminately hitting civilians," said Stork.
"Israel should stop its use of the weapon in Gaza, which is
one of the most densely populated areas on earth."
To read the July 2007 Human Rights Watch report,
"Indiscriminate Fire: Palestinian Rocket Attacks on
Israel and Israeli Artillery Shelling in the Gaza Strip,"
please visit: http://hrw.org/reports/2007
To read a 2003 Human Rights Watch news
release on the use of flechettes in the
Occupied Palestinian Territories, please
visit:
http://hrw.org/english/docs
Updates the Shana'a (Shanaa) and Abu Mizyed (Barbakh)
cases: http://www.ifex.org/en/content
For further information, contact
Nick Wood (English), Jerusalem, mobile:
+972 54 259 4202;
Joe Stork (English), Washington, DC,
mobile: +1 202 299 4925;
Gasser Abdel-Razek (Arabic, English), Cairo,
mobile: +20 10 502 9999;
Fred Abrahams (English, German),
Berlin, mobile: +49 162 875 6520); or
Human Rights Watch, Washington Office,
1522 K Street, N.W., Washington, DC 20005-1202,
U.S.A.,
tel: +1 202 371 6592, fax: +1 202 371 0124,
e-mail: hrwdc@hrw.org, Internet: http://www.hrw.org/
The information contained in this update is the
sole responsibility of Human Rights Watch.
In citing this material for broadcast or publication,
please credit Human Rights Watch.
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