The Islamist group Hamas, rejecting charges of war crimes in a UN report, said on Thursday three Israeli civilians killed in rocket attacks by its members during Israel’s Gaza offensive last year were hit by mistake.
Hamas said the explanation was part of its 52-page response to a UN report on last year’s Gaza war by a panel led by jurist Richard Goldstone, which accused it of targeting civilians by firing hundreds of rockets on Israeli communities.
“The killing of three Israeli civilians as alleged by Israel and as mentioned in the Goldstone report was by mistake and the target was military installations inside the Zionist cities,” said Salah al-Bardaweel, a senior Hamas official. “Resistance fighters were warned against hitting civilians.”
However, New York-based Human Rights Watch rejected the Islamists’ claim of unintentionally targeting civilians and even noted comments by Hamas leaders during the three-week conflict that said attacks against Israeli civilians were acceptable.
“Hamas’ claim that rockets were intended to hit Israeli military targets and only accidentally harmed civilians is belied by the facts,” the rights group said.
Yigal Palmor of Israel’s Foreign Ministry said the Hamas explanation was “an absurd attempt to delude world opinion”.
This is the first time a leader of Hamas has described attacks in which Israeli civilians have died as mistakes. The group is responsible for the deaths of hundreds of Israeli civilians in suicide bombings since the 1990s.
A Hamas official who declined to be named defended past suicide attacks as a justifiable “response to the killing of Palestinian civilians throughout years of Israeli occupation.”
Hamas has also made no apology for firing thousands of inaccurate homemade rockets at southern Israeli towns over the past few years. Though most cause no injuries, the salvoes disrupt daily life and some of them are lethal.
Hamas and other militant groups in Gaza fired hundreds of rockets that hit Israeli communities in the Gaza war.
The Goldstone report criticizes both sides in the conflict, which killed up to 1,387 Palestinians, including hundreds of civilians, and 13 Israelis, including the three civilians in question. But it was harsher towards Israel.
Israel boycotted the UN panel and also rejected allegations that it committed war crimes, also saying its forces had tried to minimise civilian casualties, in heavily populated areas in the Gaza Strip where militants operated.
The Goldstone report gives Israel and Palestinian Hamas militants six months to mount credible investigations or face possible war crimes prosecution in The Hague.
Israeli Cabinet minister Yuli Edelstein said on Sunday Israel would make do with internal army investigations of last year’s war that resulted in a handful of courts-martial over minor offences, but would deliver a “formal response” to the report.
Israel said it attacked the Gaza Strip to stem years of Palestinian rocket salvoes and in the absence of peace prospects with Hamas, which refuses to recognise Israel and spurns Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas for his diplomacy.
The Philippine Department of Justice yesterday labeled Vice President Sara Duterte the “mastermind” of a plot to assassinate the nation’s president, giving her five days to respond to a subpoena. Duterte is being asked to explain herself in the wake of a blistering weekend press conference where she said she had instructed that Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr be killed should an alleged plot to kill her succeed. “The government is taking action to protect our duly elected president,” Philippine Undersecretary of Justice Jesse Andres said at yesterday’s press briefing. “The premeditated plot to assassinate the president as declared by the self-confessed mastermind
Texas’ education board on Friday voted to allow Bible-infused teachings in elementary schools, joining other Republican-led US states that pushed this year to give religion a larger presence in public classrooms. The curriculum adopted by the Texas State Board of Education, which is controlled by elected Republicans, is optional for schools to adopt, but they would receive additional funding if they do so. The materials could appear in classrooms as early as next school year. Republican Texas Governor Greg Abbott has voiced support for the lesson plans, which were provided by the state’s education agency that oversees the more than
Ireland, the UK and France faced travel chaos on Saturday and one person died as a winter storm battered northwest Europe with strong winds, heavy rain, snow and ice. Hampshire Police in southern England said a man died after a tree fell onto a car on a major road near Winchester early in the day. Police in West Yorkshire said they were probing whether a second death from a traffic incident was linked to the storm. It is understood the road was not icy at the time of the incident. Storm Bert left at least 60,000 properties in Ireland without power, and closed
CONSPIRACIES: Kano suspended polio immunization in 2003 and 2004 following claims that polio vaccine was laced with substances that could render girls infertile Zuwaira Muhammad sat beside her emaciated 10-month-old twins on a clinic bed in northern Nigeria, caring for them as they battled malnutrition and malaria. She would have her babies vaccinated if they regain their strength, but for many in Kano — a hotbed of anti-vaccine sentiment — the choice is not an obvious one. The infants have been admitted to the 75-bed clinic in the Unguwa Uku neighbourhood, one of only two in the city of 4.5 million run by French aid agency Doctors Without Borders (MSF). Kano has the highest malaria burden in Nigeria, but the city has long
RSS