Israel's Gaza "Terror"

By IOL Correspondents

A Palestinian man cries over the body of his son following an Israeli air strike in Gaza December 27, 2008. CAIRO — A fact-finding mission of Israeli and Palestinian human rights and medical groups found that that Israel perpetrated "terror" in the besieged Gaza Strip during its 22-day war. "The underlying meaning of the attack on the Gaza Strip…appears to be one of creating terror without mercy to anyone," Physicians for Human Rights-Israel and the Palestinian Medical Relief Society (PMRS) concluded. "It appears that the wide range of attacks with sophisticated weaponry was predominantly focused on terrorizing the population." The two groups commissioned an independent fact-finding mission to assess the broader effects of the Israeli air, sea and land attacks on the vulnerable civilian population of Gaza. Five senior international medical experts conducted the investigation between January 29 and February 5, documenting the testimonies of 44 Gaza civilians. In their 92-page report, they accused the Israeli army of committing serious violations of international humanitarian law. "Nearly all the people we spoke to slept cuddled together with the other members of their family in a central room of the house during the three weeks of attack," said the experts. "No one knew where or when the next bomb or explosion would occur." The Israeli war killed 1417 people, half of them women and children, and injured more than 5303. It destroyed nearly 20,000 homes, 48 government offices, 31 police stations and 30 mosques across the impoverished coastal enclave. Amnesty International has accused Israel of "unlawful attacks" in Gaza while Human Rights Watch said the offensive violated the Humanitarian Law. The leading British charity Oxfam said Israeli leaders have committed "massive and disproportionate violence" in violation of international law. Cold-blood In their report, the senior health experts detail "distressing" testimonies by Gaza civilians who faced wanton killings, delayed evacuations for their injured and slow death. "It was especially distressing to hear of individual cases in which soldiers had been within seeing, hearing and speaking distance of their victims for significant stretches of time, but despite the opportunity for 'humanization', had denied wounded people access to lifesaving medical care, or even shot at civilians at short range." Muhammad Saad Abu Halima, who lost two brothers and a young sister, describes how Israeli soldiers ordered them to leave the tractor taking them to the hospital. "They could see that we were all wounded and dirty from the explosions. They shot at us, killing my cousins…who were driving us to the hospital." After forcing Abu Halima to leave his sister's dead body in the tractor, the soldiers forced the family to walk to hospital. "For about 300 meters the soldiers were shooting at our feet as we walked." Souad Abed Rabbo, 54, witnessed the killing of her granddaughter in cold blood even after they exited their home holding white flags. "…suddenly a soldier opened fire and shot the granddaughter of the witness, Souad, in the neck and chest," said the report. "She died immediately." Israeli soldiers have recently spoken out about wanton killing of Palestinian civilians during the Gaza war. Yohanna Lerman, a lawyer with the medical rights groups, said although their report was a preliminary investigation every case was enough to indict Israel's political and military leaders. "The military was well aware that such an attack on a densely populated area would exert a terrible toll on the civilian population," agrees Hadas Ziv, Executive Director of Physicians for Human Rights-Israel. "It was the Israeli Army’s responsibility to secure a way for the civilian population to flee the zone of combat."