Observers say that it is open secret that more than 39,000 people mostly women and children were killed by Israel using US weapons because supply of weapons not suspened even for a single day.
Russia is killing innocent Ukrainians taking advantage of US silence in Gazan atrocities b y its arch ally "Israel" How can US or WEst make hue and cry on the war crime in Ukraine when they are lip tightened on Gaza's atrocities where 39,000 civilians have so far been martyred.
Fragments of the US-made Joint Direct Attack Munitions guidance system were found in the rubble of destroyed homes in the neighborhood of Deir al-Balah in central Gaza, according to a report released Tuesday by the human rights organization.
Israel uses a wide variety of American weapons and munitions, but Amnesty International’s report is one of the first attempts to tie an American-made weapon to a specific attack that left a significant number of civilians dead.
The JDAM is a “guidance tail kit that converts existing unguided free-fall bombs into accurate, adverse weather ‘smart’ munitions,” according to the US Air Force.
Amnesty International said its weapons experts and a “remote sensing analyst” examined satellite imagery and photos of the homes that show the “fragments of ordnance recovered from the rubble” and the destruction, the report explains. Amnesty’s fieldworkers took the photos.
As a result of these two attacks, 19 children, 14 women, and 10 men were killed, the report claims.
The human rights organization said it “did not find any indication that there were any military objectives at the sites” of the airstrikes or that the individuals living in the homes were legitimate military targets.
“The organization found that these air strikes were either direct attacks on civilians or civilian objects or indiscriminate attacks,” the report says, calling for the attacks to be investigated as war crimes.
In a statement to CNN, the Israel Defense Forces called the report “flawed, biased and premature, based on baseless assumptions regarding the IDF’s operations.”
“The assumption that intelligence regarding the military use of a particular structure does not exist unless revealed is contradictory to any understanding of military activity, and the report uses this flawed assumption to imply equally flawed and biased conclusions regarding the IDF, in line with existing biases and prior problematic work by this organization,” the IDF said.
The statement said that the military “regrets any harm caused to civilians or civilian property as a result of its operations, and examines all its operations in order to learn and improve.”
Amnesty International, in its report, said that the use of American weapons for such strikes “should be an urgent wake-up call to the Biden administration.”
“The US-made weapons facilitated the mass killings of extended families,” said Agnès Callamard, Amnesty International’s Secretary General, according to the report.
The US State Department is reviewing Amnesty International’s report, spokesperson Matt Miller said Wednesday.
“We have made clear in our discussions with Israeli leaders that we are deeply concerned about the protection of civilians in this conflict,” Miller said. “We expect Israel to only target legitimate targets and to adhere to the laws of armed conflict.”
The Pentagon on Tuesday said it too was reviewing the report.
“We are going to continue to consult closely with our Israeli partners on the importance of taking civilian safety into account in conducting their operations,” spokesman Brigadier General Patrick Ryder told journalists.
Israel is the largest cumulative recipient of US foreign assistance since World War II, according to the Congressional Research Service. The US on average gives Israel $3 billion in military aid per year, and the Biden administration sought an additional $10.6 billion in military aid in the wake of Hamas’ October 7 attack in Israel.
Israeli military tanks roll near the border with the Gaza Strip on December 5, amid continuing battles between Israel and the militant group Hamas.
US officials think Gaza ground operation could end by January as Biden admin privately warns Israel about its tactics
The first attack referenced by Amnesty International occurred about 8:30 p.m. on October 10, hitting the al-Najjar family home and killing 21 of its members, as well as three of their neighbors, the report says.
That bomb most likely weighed about 2,000 pounds, based on the amount of damage to the home and surrounding buildings, Amnesty claims. The year 2017 is also stamped into the plate, photos from the report show, indicating the bomb was manufactured in that year.
“JDAM is a guided air-to-surface weapon that uses either the 2,000-pound BLU-109/MK 84, the 1,000-pound BLU-110/MK 83 or the 500-pound BLU-111/MK 82 warhead as the payload,” according to the US Air Force.
Suleiman Salman al-Najjar, who survived the attack, told Amnesty he had been ill and returned from the hospital to find his home bombed and family killed. “I was shocked. I rushed home and saw a scene of utter destruction. I could not believe my eyes. Everybody was under the rubble. The house was completely pulverized. The bodies were reduced to shreds,” he said.
The second attack occurred about midday on October 22 and hit three houses belonging to three brothers in the Abu Mu’eileq family, the report says. In total, 18 members of the Mu-eileq family were killed, including 12 children and six women, as well as one of their neighbors, the report says.
Bakir Abu Mu’eileq told Amnesty he lost his wife and four of their children in the attack. Abu Mu’eileq – an ear, nose and throat specialist – said that he had been working at the nearby hospital when the attack occurred.
“We are three brothers married to three sisters, living among ourselves, focused on our families and work, and far from politics. We are doctors and scientists,” Abu Mu’eileq said, adding, “we cannot understand why our homes were bombed. … There is nobody armed or political here. Our lives, our families, were destroyed completely, obliterated. Why?”
Amnesty says photos show the bomb that hit the homes of the Mu-eileq family weighed about 1,000 pounds and was manufactured in 2018, according to the year stamped into the plate.
“The US may share responsibility for serious violations of international humanitarian law committed by Israel with US-supplied weapons, as all states have a duty not to knowingly contribute to internationally wrongful acts by other states,” Amnesty warned.
The human rights organization is urging the US government and other governments to stop transferring arms to Israel “that more likely than not will be used to commit or heighten risks of violations of international law.”
“A state that continues to supply arms being used to commit violations may share responsibility for these violations,” Amnesty said.
The International Criminal Court should investigate as war crimes three Israeli air strikes that killed 44 Palestinian civilians, including 32 children, in the occupied Gaza Strip last month, Amnesty International said today.
The strikes – one on al-Maghazi on April 16, and two on Rafah on April 19 and 20, 2024 – also injured at least 20 civilians, and are further evidence of a broader pattern of war crimes committed by the Israeli military in the occupied Gaza Strip in the last seven months.
“These devastating strikes have decimated families and cruelly cut short the lives of 32 children,” said Erika Guevara-Rosas, Amnesty International’s Senior Director for Research, Advocacy, Policy and Campaigns. “Our findings offer crucial evidence of unlawful attacks by the Israeli military as the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court applies for arrest warrants for senior Israeli and Hamas officials, including Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. As the Israeli military continues to escalate its ground incursion in Rafah, these cases also illustrate the urgent need for an immediate ceasefire.”
“Despite growing calls to end arms transfers to Israel, a UN Security Council resolution ordering a ceasefire, and world leaders warning against the Israeli ground incursion into Rafah, the Israeli military has continued to escalate its operations, including these unrelenting attacks on civilians,” said Erika Guevara-Rosas. “The cases documented here illustrate a clear pattern of attacks over the past seven months in which the Israeli military has flouted international law, killing Palestinian civilians with total impunity and displaying a callous disregard for human lives.”
Since October 2023, Amnesty International has conducted in-depth investigations into 16 Israeli air strikes that killed a total of 370 civilians, including 159 children, and left hundreds more wounded. Amnesty International has found evidence of war crimes by Israeli forces, including direct attacks on civilians or indiscriminate attacks, as well as other unlawful attacks and collective punishment of the civilian population.
For this latest investigation, Amnesty International interviewed 17 survivors and witnesses, surveyed the locations of the strikes, visited a hospital where the wounded were receiving treatment, photographed remnants of the munitions used in the attacks for expert identification, reviewed video and photographic material obtained from local sources and available on social media, and examined satellite imagery of the locations.
In all three cases, Amnesty International did not find any evidence that there had been any military targets in or around the locations targeted by the Israeli military, raising serious concerns that these attacks amount to direct attacks on civilians and civilian objects, which are war crimes. Israel has not provided any information about the attacks in Rafah, and has only provided general allegations, which it later contradicted, regarding the attack on al-Maghazi.
Even if Israeli forces had intended to target legitimate military objectives in the vicinity of these three strikes, the evidence indicates these attacks did not distinguish between military objectives and civilian objects, and as such would therefore be indiscriminate. Indiscriminate attacks that kill or injure civilians, or destroy or damage civilian objects, are war crimes.
The evidence collected by Amnesty International also indicates the Israeli military failed to provide warning – at minimum to anyone living in the locations that were hit – before launching the attacks.
On May 7, 2024, Amnesty International sent questions regarding the strikes to the Israeli authorities. At the time of publication, no response had been received.
Al-Maghazi refugee camp: foosball table strike kills 15 civilians
On April 16, at approximately 3:40pm, an Israeli air strike on al-Maghazi refugee camp in central Gaza killed 10 children aged between four and 15, and five men aged between 29 and 62. The men killed in the strike included a barber, a falafel seller, a dental assistant, a football coach, and an older man with a disability. More than a dozen residents, most of them children, were injured.
The munition landed in the middle of a market street where children were playing around a foosball table. Amnesty International reviewed four videos and 22 photographs filmed by residents and journalists, and also taken at the scene by its fieldworkers.
Damage from the weapon’s fragments is visible on the foosball table, on nearby vehicles, and on the walls of surrounding houses and shops. The pattern of damage at the scene, and the electronic components in the recovered fragments, matched that of small precision-guided missiles and glide bombs launched by Israeli drones. No helicopter or planes were reported in the area that day, while drones were heard consistently according to witnesses interviewed by Amnesty International.
Two of Jaber Nader Abu Jayab’s children were killed in the strike. The 34-year-old told Amnesty International: “I was at home when I heard the strike. I thought it was further away but as I went out, I realized that it was right by our street, about 20 meters away. There were children killed and injured on the ground all around.
“I found my sister’s son, Mohammed (age 12). He was badly injured and died two days later. Then I found my daughter Mila (four). She was badly injured and was taken to the hospital, but when I went to the hospital about an hour later, I found that she had died shortly after… Then I saw my daughter Lujan (nine), she was dead.” His son Ahmed (seven) was badly injured but survived.
Five days after the strike, Rajaa Radwan, 10, told Amnesty International at the scene of the attack: “I was playing at this foosball table… I told my friends to continue and I went to the shop next door and then went home… I was lucky that I was not injured, but my friends Raghad and Shahd were both killed.”
Mohammed Jaber Issa, a 35-year-old science teacher who lost relatives in the strike, told Amnesty International that Shahd Odatallah, 11, was killed as she visited the supermarket to buy cookies: “She died while holding a piece of ma’moul [cookie] in her hand.”
He added: “One of the children killed in the strike fled al-Tuffah neighborhood in Gaza City; he fled hunger there only to be met by death here.”
Mahmud Shanaa, 37, who was injured in the strike, told Amnesty International: “The children and those around them were killed because the missile landed so near the foosball table. There are always lots of children around the foosball table. Children don’t have anywhere else to go play, and now with the dangers of the war they don’t go far and play outside their homes.”
Responding to CNN, the Israeli military initially said it struck a “terror target” in al-Maghazi but declined to provide any additional details or evidence. They later said they had no record of the strike. The Israeli military also declined to answer questions regarding the nature of the target, or whether any fighters were killed.
Rafah: two strikes in two days kill 29 civilians
On April 19 at approximately 10:15pm, an aircraft bomb struck the four-story home of the Abu Radwan family in the Tal al-Sultan neighborhood in West Rafah, killing nine members of the family – six children, two women and one man – and injuring five other relatives (three children, a man and a woman). The strike also injured a woman and her daughter from another family who lived in the house next door.
Subhi Abu Radwan, a 72-year-old retired civil servant, survived the strike. One of his sons and daughter-in-law, a daughter, and six of his grandchildren were killed. He told Amnesty International: “I was still awake when the strike happened, while my children and grandchildren were already asleep. I was downstairs and did not hear an explosion, but became aware of the strike as the house shook and everything became full of dust and rubble.
“I started to scream for help and neighbors and rescuers came and helped us. The missile came through the roof, on the third floor and went down to the second floor where it exploded, killing everyone there…
“I did not know who was dead or alive until later at the hospital. It was then that I discovered how many had died. The dead and the injured were found outside in the rubble; they had been thrown out of the building by the force of the explosion.”
Nisrine Saleh, a 40-year-old teacher and another daughter-in-law of Subhi, was injured in the strike. She told Amnesty International: “I was unable to move for several days after the strike. Doctors told me that I damaged my vertebrae, and I feared that I would remain paralyzed but thankfully I am beginning to recover some mobility… I still cannot fathom fully what has happened to our family. Our family was destroyed for no reason.”
From photographs of fragments recovered at the scene, Amnesty International’s weapons expert identified the munition as an MPR 500, a 500lb bomb made by the Israeli firm IMI. Remnants of the bomb’s precision guidance package were marked with a CAGE code of 0UVG2, indicating at least a portion was manufactured by AeroAntenna, a US defense contractor based in California.
Amnesty International reviewed 17 photographs and one video of the attack site taken at the scene by Amnesty International’s fieldworkers. The pattern of damage at the Abu Radwan house is consistent with an aircraft bomb of this size. Analysis of satellite imagery of the site shows subtle changes and damage to the roof between April 16 and 20, which is consistent with ground photos and witness accounts.
The following day, April 20, a strike at approximately 11:20pm destroyed the Abdelal family home in the al-Jneinah neighborhood in eastern Rafah, killing 20 family members – 16 children and four women – and injuring two other children. The victims were asleep. The only survivors are three fathers of the children, grandfather and some of the children who were sitting in the reception room at the entrance of the family farm, approximately 100 meters/328 feet from the house.
Hussein Abdelal, the owner of the house, lost his mother, his two wives and 10 of his children (aged from 18 months to 16 years) in the strike. He told Amnesty International: “I keep looking in the rubble for whatever I can find from my mother and my children. Their bodies were torn to shreds. I found shreds, body parts of my children, I found them without heads. It’s inhumane, it [the bomb] destroyed everything, our lives, our homes, even the animals were killed…
“Why did they treat us so inhumanely? We have nothing to do with anything; have not done anything wrong… I still cannot fathom what happened.”
The collapsed floors and massive structural damage to the Abdelal family home, analyzed by Amnesty International from 14 photographs and three videos taken at the scene by Amnesty International’s fieldworkers, are consistent with an aircraft bomb. Analysis of satellite imagery of the site shows the destruction caused between 07:03am UTC on April 20 and 11:51am on April 21.
Background
Rafah had been hosting more than 1.2 million people from areas further north who were forcibly displaced since October 13, 2023, when the Israeli military issued the first mass “evacuation” order to the population of north Gaza. Gaza’s residents were forcibly displaced further southward as the Israeli military continued to expand its ground campaign.
When Israeli forces launched a full-scale ground incursion into Khan Younis, a large city north of Rafah, in February 2024, most residents fled to Rafah and some fled northwards to the central Gaza Strip, including to areas in and around al-Maghazi. Much of Khan Younis was destroyed or damaged by the time Israeli forces left in April 2024. Some 90% of Gaza’s population has been displaced at least once, and many have been forced to move several times. It is now estimated that close to one million Palestinians have been displaced in Gaza following Israel’s expansion of operations in Rafah.
Amnesty International has also documented violations of international law by Hamas and other armed groups on and since October 7, including the deliberate killings of civilians, hostage-taking and launching indiscriminate rocket attacks on Israel. Amnesty International is calling on Hamas and other armed groups to unconditionally release all civilians who continue to be held hostage in Gaza. Hostage-taking is a war crime. Amnesty International has consistently documented violations of international law committed by Hamas and other armed groups in Gaza, including torture and ill-treatment, indiscriminate rocket attacks into Israel and those resulting in Palestinian casualties in the occupied Gaza Strip.
