Alwaght | News & Analysis Website

Alwaght:More evidence has emerged on war crimes committed by the  Israeli regime during a military campaign against the Gaza Strip last year.
The existence of such evidence was announced in a joint report by Amnesty International, a London-based rights group, and Forensic Architecture, a research project based at Goldsmiths, the University of London.
The online report titled, ‘Black Friday’: Carnage in Rafah during 2014 Israel/Gaza conflict, features cutting edge investigative techniques and analysis and was prepared based on satellite imagery, eyewitness accounts, videos and photos.
The joint report said Israel bombarded residential areas in the southern Gaza Strip city of Rafah between August 1 and 4, 2014 in response to the alleged capture by Palestinian fighters of an Israeli soldier.
“There is strong evidence that Israeli forces committed war crimes in their relentless and massive bombardment of residential areas of Rafah in order to foil the capture of Lieutenant Hadar Goldin, displaying a shocking disregard for civilian lives. They carried out a series of disproportionate or otherwise indiscriminate attacks, which they have completely failed to investigate independently,” said Philip Luther, Director of the Middle East and North Africa Programme at Amnesty International.
The massive amount of evidence collected was presented to military and other experts, and then pieced together in chronological order to create a detailed account of events from 1 August, when the Israeli military implemented the controversial and secretive “Hannibal” procedure following the capture of Lieutenant Hadar Goldin.
Under the “Hannibal Directive”, Israeli regime forces can respond to the capture of a soldier with intense firepower despite the risks to his life or to civilians in the vicinity. As the report illustrates, the implementation of the directive led to the ordering of unlawful attacks on civilians.
 “After Lieutenant Hadar Goldin was captured, Israeli forces appear to have thrown out the rule book, employing a ‘gloves off’ policy with devastating consequences for civilians. The goal was to foil his capture at any cost. The obligation to take precautions to avoid the loss of civilian lives was completely neglected. Entire districts of Rafah, including heavily populated residential areas, were bombarded without distinction between civilians and military targets,” said Philip Luther.
The ferocity of the attacks, which continued after Lieutenant Goldin was declared dead on 2 August, suggests they may in part have been motivated by a desire to punish the population of Rafah as revenge for his capture.
Satellite images and photographs analysed for the report show craters and damage indicating that hospitals and ambulances were attacked repeatedly during the assault on Rafah, in violation of international law.
Earlier this month, the United Nations Human Rights Council also adopted a resolution calling for those responsible for war crimes during Israel’s devastating military aggression against Gaza to be brought to trial.
Israel launched airstrikes on Gaza in early July 2014 and later expanded its military campaign with a ground invasion of the Palestinian territory. The war ended in late August that year.
More than 2,130 Palestinians lost their lives and some 11,000 were wounded. Gaza Health officials say the victims included 578 children and nearly 260 women.
Late June Palestinian Authority Foreign Minister Riyad al-Maliki submitted files on Israeli war crimes in the West Bank and Gaza to the International Criminal Court (ICC).
Nabil Abu Zneid, the Palestinian ambassador to the Netherlands, said the documents describe in detail the Israeli breaches of international law in Gaza and the West Bank.
The files also explain the ongoing Israeli occupation policies and illegal settlement construction across the occupied West Bank and East al-Quds.
Barring pressure for Israeli regime allies in the west especially the US, the new documents will help the ICC to open a full-scale investigation with a view to pressing crime charges against senior Israeli regime officials. Already ICC prosecutor Fatou Bensouda has given in to pressure and rejected orders to reopen probe into Israel regime’s lethal attack on a humanitarian aid flotilla to Gaza five years ago.
Geoffrey Nice, lead counsel for victims and families of those killed in the Israeli attack on the Mavi Marmara, says the arguments Chief Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda has put forward are “complete hogwash.”
Instead of doing her job and properly investigating the case, Nice said, Bensouda’s appeal is “a last ditch attempt to do what would be expected of her by the US and supporters of Israel.”