Group says Hamas attacks are war crimes
Human Rights Watch cited "strong evidence" against Gaza's rulers in rockets fired at Israel.
GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip - There is "strong evidence" that Gaza's Hamas rulers committed war crimes by allowing its fighters to fire rockets from the territory that killed civilians in Israel, a prominent human-rights group said in a report yesterday.
The 31-page report released by Human Rights Watch focuses on Hamas' actions in connection with Israel's three-week offensive in Gaza that ended in late January. The New York-based group and others have previously accused Israel of committing war crimes during the offensive, which aimed at stopping Palestinian rocket fire.
"Hamas rocket attacks targeting Israeli civilians are unlawful and unjustifiable, and amount to war crimes," said Iain Levine of Human Rights Watch. But the group stopped short of accusing Hamas extremists of war crimes; officials said only a court could make that determination.
Hamas rejected the group's findings, calling it "biased."
Disputing civilian toll
More than 1,100 Palestinians were killed during the conflict. Palestinians said most were civilians, but Israel disputed that.
Three Israeli civilians were killed by rocket fire and 10 soldiers were also killed during the conflict, in which Israeli warplanes, tanks, and artillery smashed Palestinian government buildings and destroyed or damaged thousands of apartments, schools, and factories.
Hamas fired hundreds of rockets at Israeli towns, forcing thousands of civilians to hide in shelters or flee. Many of those rockets were filmed by Israeli army drones and seen by foreign observers being launched from crowded Palestinian neighborhoods.
Rights group accused Israel of using excessive force and endangering civilians in Gaza. The U.N. has begun a probe into both sides' actions.
Bill Van Esveld of Human Rights Watch said the intent of armed groups to harm civilians, not numbers of people killed, determined whether they committed war crimes.
He said Hamas, which is committed to Israel's destruction and is considered a terrorist group by most of the international community, violated international war rules by letting fighters launch rockets that either "deliberately or indiscriminately" targeted civilian areas.
Rules of war
Hamas also violated rules of war by allowing extremists to fire from populated Gaza areas, endangering civilians by making them vulnerable to return Israeli fire, he said.
Van Esveld said that in the specific cases in which three Israeli civilians were killed by rocket fire, there was "strong evidence" Hamas extremists committed war crimes.
One Israeli civilian, Beber Vaknin, 58, was killed in his backyard, about six miles from Gaza. Hani al-Mahdi, an Israel construction worker, was killed at a building site. Irit Sheetrit, a mother of four, was killed as she drove home.
Hamas took responsibility for each of the attacks on its Web site, but spokesman Ismail Ridwan nevertheless denied the charges, saying, "Hamas does not target civilians." In the lexicon of Hamas, no Israeli is considered a civilian, as all have either performed compulsory military service, will serve in the future, or are in the reserves.
Israeli government spokesman Mark Regev referred queries for comment to a 160-page Israeli document released last week on the Gaza offensive. It has 20 pages of documentation of Hamas practices, including rocket attacks, and Israel's response.
The Israeli NGO Monitor, which critiques groups such as Human Rights Watch, criticized it for waiting six months before issuing its report critical of Hamas though it contained "no new information."
