JERUSALEM (AP) — The Israeli military on Tuesday said it has wrapped up an investigation into an airstrike that killed nine members of a Palestinian family in the Gaza Strip. The report claims the targeted house had been used by Islamic militants but also admitted it didn’t expect the strike to result in civilian casualties.
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The Nov. 14 airstrike in the central Gaza town of Deir al-Balah came in the closing hours of a fierce two-day burst of fighting between Israel and the Islamic Jihad militant group. Without warning, the overnight Israeli strike destroyed the house, killing nine members of the extended Abu Malhous family, including two women and five children under the age of 13.
In a statement, the military said its investigation found the building had served as a “military compound” used by Islamic Jihad. It said that military intelligence had approved the target last June, and that intelligence updates determined the home was used for military purposes in the days before and during the November fighting.
“The review also concluded that when planning and carrying out the attack, it was estimated in the IDF that civilians would not be harmed as a result of an attack,” the army said. It said its review included recommendations “with the aim of reducing, as much as possible, the recurrence of similar irregular events.”
Mohammed Abu Malhous, 19, who lost his parents and three siblings in the airstrike, rejected the findings.
“Why are they not going to punish those who are responsible?” he told The Associated Press. “They are liars … Our house is well known in the area and we have lived in it for the past 15 years.”
The incident has raised new questions about Israeli tactics in Gaza.
Since the Hamas militant group seized control of Gaza, Israel has fought three wars and numerous skirmishes against armed groups in the territory.
Hundreds of Palestinian civilians have been killed by Israeli fire over the years, drawing heavy criticism of Israeli battlefield practices and accusations from Palestinian and international human rights groups of war crimes.
Israel says it is acting in self-defense, takes great safeguards to avoid harming civilians and accuses Palestinian militants of endangering civilians by firing rockets from residential areas.
The report said the army made “considerate efforts” to avoid civilian casualties during the November fighting.
Last week, the chief prosecutor at the International Criminal Court in the Hague said she had found sufficient evidence to open a formal war crimes investigation into Israeli battlefield practices during a 2014 war in Gaza, pending a ruling by the court on territorial jurisdiction.
Fatou Bensouda also said there was evidence that Hamas and other militant groups have intentionally targeted Israeli civilians and used Gaza’s own civilian population as human shields.
Israel has rejected Bensouda’s findings and says the court has no jurisdiction, in part because it says the military is capable of investigating itself. But human rights groups have accused the army of “whitewashing” wrongdoing by its forces.
Hamdan al-Sawarka, a relative of the Abu Malhous family, said the family hopes to sue the army in Israeli courts. He also called on the internationally recognized Palestinian Authority to pursue the case with the International Criminal Court.
“We will fight with utmost strength,” he said. “The Israelis have the best technology in the world. How can they claim in the 21st century that they don’t know about civilian presence?”
To bad the blame lies squarely on Hamas shoulder don’t shoot missles indiscriminately into ISRAEL or suffer the same fate period
they hide behind civilians and the u.n. is ready to condemn Israel. anything change since pharaoh’s day? unfortunately the answer is no
We hear the same bupkis excuses time and time again from the IDF, namely that “according to their intelligence, that location was being used by terrorists”, etc. Then, a period of hand wringing takes place, and then a so-called “investigation” (aka a whitewash) takes place. In the end, nobody is ever held accountable, and even if they are, the punishment is minimal Then, the vicious cycle repeats itself. During the Gaza War of 2014, some kids were playing on a Gaza beach, when they were killed from the air. The IDF spokesperson at the time, with an Australian accent, came on tv, and also offered some baloney excuse. Nobody was ever held accountable.
In 1967, the Israeli Air Force repeatedly strafed and rocketed the USS Liberty (a US Navy communications ship), in international waters. The Liberty begged for help from the 6th fleet. Instead of helping them, that idiotic US Defense Secretary, Robert MacNamara, actually recalled fighter planes back, which had taken off from the deck of a US aircraft carrier, and told the not to engage the IDF. Those fighter planes could have prevented further loss of life. Over thirty four American sailors and civilians were killed (including American Jews). Can everyone imagine the uproar if such an incident happened today, but was the other way around with American fighter jets attacking an Israeli ship, in international waters?
There is no question and the Israelis are fools to do investigations when they’re fighting terrorists who fight among civilians. The sole legal and moral responsibility for civilian casualties when terrorists are fighting from civilian areas is that of the terrorists. Another reason why Israel shouldn’t do investigations like this is that regardless of the truth of their findings, sub-vermin, like so-called Nachum, the Nazi Islamofascist, will attack Israel, while the Gaza terrorist sub-vermin will continue their purposeful bombing of civilian communities and using their own people as human shields.
To: Facts Rule- I am not a “sub-vermin”, or an Islamofascist”, but a proud Jew, who has fought anti-semitism his whole life. I even appeared on television a long time ago, urging our Justice Department to expedite the deportation of Nazi war criminals, living in the USA. A few years before he died, President Shimon Peres of Israel apologized for a massacre that was perpetrated by the Israeli Border Police on Oct. 29,1956, in the Israeli Arab village of Kfar Qasim; 48 civilians were killed by the border police, including six women (including a pregnant woman) and twenty three children. They were killed, because they were never told of a curfew, at the time. Therefore, are you also going to refer to Shimon Peres, using the same despicable terms which you used to me, you mental defect?