Souseiseki wrote:Vazdania wrote:Unintentionally. They are attemtping to destroy only Hamas controlled houeses.
srael's highest-rating news programme, Channel Two News, has published a statement correcting false claims that rockets were fired from schools operated by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) during the Gaza war in 2008-2009. The statement makes clear that Israeli officials themselves acknowledged that such claims were false and that there was no evidence to support them.
During Operation "Cast Lead" Israeli forces repeatedly took over Palestinian homes in the Gaza Strip forcing families to stay in a ground-floor room while they used the rest of their house as a military base and sniper position – effectively using the families, both adults and children, as “human shields” and putting them at risk.
While soldiers wore protective body armour and helmets and shielded themselves behind sandbags as they fired from the houses, the Palestinian inhabitants of the houses had no such protection.
For the vast majority of homes destroyed, more than 3,000, and damaged, some 20,000, during Operation “Cast Lead”, the Israeli army has provided no evidence to substantiate its allegations that the houses were used as combat positions, as military command centres or to manufacture or store weapons – or for any other purpose which, under certain circumstances, would have made it lawful to target them.
Many of the houses, factories and farms were bulldozed and many of the houses were destroyed with Israeli anti-tank mines, as evident from the remains of the mines that littered the destroyed neighbourhoods, and from the pattern of destruction resulting from this method. Although designed to be used against tanks, these mines can also be set off remotely. Israeli forces have often used them to destroy Palestinian houses in the West Bank and at times also in Gaza.
The fact that the soldiers used this method – which required them to leave their tanks, walk between buildings and enter houses in order to place the explosive charges inside the houses along the supporting walls – indicates that they felt extremely confident that there were no Palestinian gunmen inside or around the houses. It also indicates their confidence that there were no tunnels under the houses which gunmen could use to capture them, and that the houses were not booby-trapped. Had the soldiers believed that they were in danger of being shot, blown up or captured, they would not have ventured out of their tanks to place the mines inside the houses.
Clearly marked ambulances with flashing emergency lights and paramedics wearing recognizable fluorescent vests were repeatedly fired upon as they attempted to rescue the wounded and collect the dead. Such attacks intensified after Israeli ground forces took positions inside Gaza on 3 January 2009. Palestinian ambulance crews tried as best they could to reach as many of the wounded and the dead as possible. They and the international volunteers who accompanied some of the ambulance crews risked their lives every day to carry out their mission.
From 3 January, when the Israeli ground incursion began, until the end of Operation “Cast Lead”, dozens of Israeli tanks took position in various locations inside the Gaza Strip, mostly in the east and north of Gaza. Tanks can fire high-explosive munitions, notably 120mm deep-penetration projectiles and guided shells with extreme precision, including while on the move and at moving targets, from a distance up to 3km from the target.
From these positions inside Gaza Israeli tanks often fired into Palestinian houses up to 2km or more away, killing scores of unarmed civilians, many of them children and women. In all the cases investigated by Amnesty International, the victims were neither caught in the crossfire of battles between soldiers and militants, nor were they shielding militants.
I wish i had known to cite such a thing; One of these days i will need to study Modern Middle eastern History
