2023-11-22 09:54:56
On October 19, an Israeli bombardment destroyed a building on the campus of the Greek Orthodox Church of Saint Porphyryin the center of the old city of Gaza. There were 450 members of the small Christian community in the capital of the Strip taking refuge there. In the attack, 18 civilians were killed and 12 were injured. The oldest victim was 80 years old; the youngest was a baby just a few months old.
There is no indication that the holy site was a legitimate military target, according to Amnesty International’s detailed analysis of the evidence (videos and testimonies). It is, therefore, an act that should be investigated as a war crime by the International Criminal Courtconcludes this human rights NGO.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) even published on their social networks a video recorded by a drone showing the moment of the air attack against one of the buildings within the church grounds. “IDF fighter jets attacked the command and control center belonging to a Hamas terrorist involved in launching rockets and mortars towards Israel,” said the Tsahal (Israeli Army), which did not provide any indication of the presence of any military objective. Modern armies have legal teams that approve operations. In the case of Israel, that task should be carried out by the Military Advocate General’s department. They did not substantiate the attacks. Shortly after, the video was deleted of the networks.
But Amnesty International kept it and analyzed it to verify its authenticity. He geolocated it to verify that it corresponded to the bombing of the church. He did the same with the raw images of the massacre recorded after the bombing and uploads to social networks. She spoke to a dozen witnesses. She viewed satellite images before and after the attack. One of his weapons experts determined the type of ammunition used against an area full of civilians: large-caliber ammunition that directly hit the building where the dead and injured people were taking refuge.
“Even in the event that there is a military objective, according to international humanitarian law, the civilian population must be notified first to evacuate,” he explains to this newspaper. Maria Pastor, spokesperson for Amnesty International.
Those responsible for the temple had publicly warned before the attack that hundreds of civilians, internally displaced people fleeing the bombings, They took refuge there. The Tsahal knew of his presence. “The decision by the Israeli military to go ahead with an attack on a known religious site, where displaced civilians were located, was reckless and therefore constitutes a war crime, even if it were believed that there was a military objective in the vicinity,” they argue.
The attack on a house full of civilians
Human rights organizations and lawyers handling the case against Israel and Hamas at the International Criminal Court have been working for weeks on document specific cases of attacks where international law has been violated. Every war crime case has to be tested and contrasted with the laws that determine which targets are legitimate and which are not. The Attorney General of The Hague has warned the Israeli Army’s lawyers that they must justify each and every attack on civilian areas: homes, hospitals, schools or bakeries are all protected targets, except in specific cases that must be proven. .
Amnesty International has analyzed in detail another massacre that shows, according to the organization, that Israel attacks civilian targets without distinction. It happened last October 20. Around two in the afternoon, Israeli fighter-bombers attacked the house of the family Al Aydi, in the Al Nuseirat refugee camp, in central Gaza. 28 civilians died, 12 of them children. Among others, the father and mother, Rami and Ranin al Aydi, and their three children: Ghina, 10 years old; Maya, 8, and Iyad, 6.
The investigation has concluded that all people present in the Al Audi family home and the two nearby houses were civilians. Two members of the Al Aydi family They even had permission to work in Israelwhose expedition requires rigorous security checks by the Israeli authorities, both for those who obtain the permit and for their extended family.
“We were sitting at home, it was full of people, boys and girls, family members,” explains one of the survivors. “Suddenly, unexpectedly, everything collapsed on our heads. All my brothers died, my nephews, my nieces. “My mother died, my sisters died, our house is gone.”
A level not seen before
“First we analyzed the crimes committed by Hamas and other Palestinian groups on October 7,” says María Pastor. “We are now documenting war crimes in Gaza, as we did with the Ukraine war. But, in this case, the level of violence, number and nature of these super war crimesfar more than what we have seen in other modern conflicts.”
Under international law, parties to armed conflicts must at all times distinguish between civilian persons or civilian objects, on the one hand, and combatants and military targets, for another. Direct bombings against civilians or objects are considered indiscriminate attacks and are prohibited. Indiscriminate attacks that kill or injure civilians constitute war crimes.
Amnesty International has not found any indication that there were military objectives in the places where the two attacks took place, that of the church and that of the house. Nor that the people who were in the buildings were military targets, which raises fears that these attacks were directed against civilians.
When Israel attacks a military objective, Amnesty argues, it is obliged to take all feasible precautions to avoid, and in any case minimize, causing death and injury to civilians. These precautions include doing everything possible to verify that a target It is a military objective; choose means and methods of attack that minimize civilian damage; assess whether an attack will be disproportionate; provide effective and advance notice when feasible; and cancel the attack if it becomes clear that it will be illegitimate.
International humanitarian law also requires that Hamas and other armed groups take all feasible precautions to protect civilians from the effects of attacks. This includes avoiding, to the extent possible, placing military objectives within or near densely populated areas.
These standards are not being followed in Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza, in which more than 16,000 people, most of them civilians, have already died. It has been Tel Aviv’s retaliation after the approximately 1,400 Israeli citizens who died at the hands of the Islamist group on October 7.
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