Shock incidents in Gaza prompt calls for war crimes tribunal
Saturday, January 10, 2009
Some shocking incidents have caused the United Nations to consider a war crimes tribunal for Gaza.
The most alarming claim is that the Israeli army herded 110 Palestinian civilians into a house in the Zeitoun neighborhood on Sunday, warned them to stay inside, and then bombed the house the next day. Thirty Palestinians were killed in the incident and scores were wounded, many having lost limbs and suffered permanent disfigurement.
The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights called on Friday for an independent war crimes investigation in Gaza to investigate the matter.
Navi Pillay told an emergency meeting of the UN Human Rights Council that the harm to Israeli civilians caused by Hamas rockets was unacceptable, but did not excuse any abuses carried out by Israeli forces in response.
Talking to the BBC afterwards Pillay said the incident in which the thirty people had been killed "appears to have all the elements of war crimes."
On Thursday, the International Red Cross said the Israeli army refused rescuers permission to reach wounded people in the neighborhood for four days. The organization was also critical of Israeli soldiers indifference to wounded children who were found in company with the body of their mother.
Concern is also high over the bombing of UN-run schools. In one incident earlier this week a school that housed hundreds of Palestinians seeking shelter from the hostilities was bombed by the Israel Air Force, despite the Israeli army being made aware of the situation, and been given the coordinates of the school. Forty three peopledied in the attack, and dozens were wounded, most of them children. Following that incident Israeli army spokesman, and Mark Regev the spokesman for the Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, stressed the Israeli army was responding to rocket fire emanating from the school yard. This claim was denided by UN workers and on Friday the army admitted there were no rockets fired from the school compound. The UN also pointed out that footage circulated to the media after the incident by the Israeli army to defend its claims, was of an incident in 2007.
