A Palestinian man walks by buildings heavily damaged by Israeli strikes in Beit Hanoun, northern Gaza Strip, Saturday, July 26, 2014. (AP Photo/Lefteris Pitarakis) By Robert Tait
Whether the shell that killed eight members of the Wahdan family in their home was fired randomly or targeted deliberately is unknown.
What is clear is that the Israeli army knew of the house and the people who lived there. The three-storey structure in the Gaza town of Beit Hanoun was pulverised to rubble during an Israeli artillery barrage on the morning of July 26.
The women, children and elderly people cowering inside stood no chance under the cascade of masonry and stonework that crashed down upon them. Only severed limbs and other body parts have since been recovered from the wreckage.
Human rights activists are pointing to the fate of the Wahdans as evidence of possible war crimes committed by Israeli forces during the offensive in Gaza that claimed nearly 2,000 Palestinian lives.
Campaigners say the latest conflict between Israel and Hamas, currently stalled by a ceasefire, has decimated or even wiped out an unprecedented number of families in the Palestinian territory. They are now trying to gather the evidence of possible war crimes committed by Israeli forces.
Last week, Saeb Erekat, the Palestinian chief negotiator, told The Daily Telegraph that the Palestinian Authority was on the verge of signing the Rome Statute and joining the International Criminal Court. If so, any evidence gathered in Gaza could provide a basis for future legal action against Israel.
“What is significant in this war, compared to previous experience, is the heavy attacks on families,” said Hamdi Shaqqura, deputy director of the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights in Gaza City.
“You have dozens of families smashed. Sometimes no single family member is left. There are hundreds of cases and every one is very significant.”
Some 871 cases of homes being damaged or destroyed, resulting in 908 deaths, have been recorded. More than 90 per cent of these were civilians, according to Al-Mezan, another Palestinian human rights group.
Palestinians carry their belongings after salvaging them from their destroyed house in the heavily bombed town of Beit Hanoun, Gaza Strip, close to the Israeli border, Friday, Aug. 1, 2014. (AP Photo/Lefteris Pitarakis)
Even in the context of such dizzying statistics, the Wahdans’ story is particularly poignant. It began soon after Israel’s ground invasion of Gaza on July 17, when troops took seven male members of the family to a facility at Erez border crossing for interrogation.
They were released without charge after three days, strongly suggesting that none were involved with Hamas or any other armed faction. But they could not return home because of the ferocious fighting taking place around Beit Hanoun.
That left the eight remaining members of the family alone in their exposed home. Zaki Wahdan, 70, and his wife, Su’ad, 67, sheltered as best they could along with their daughter-in-law, Baghdad, 51, and their four grandchildren, Zeinab, 27, Somud, 22, Ahmed, 14, and Hussein, 10. Their
two-year-old great-granddaughter, Ghina, was also in the house. The night before Israel declared a humanitarian ceasefire on July 26, troops ordered them not to use this respite as an opportunity to leave the house, according to one relation.
“I talked to them on the phone at 9pm and the Israelis had left the area 10 minutes before and told them not to move, to stay in the house,” said Amin Zaki Wahdan, 37, one of the men arrested but later released by the Israeli forces.
When relations returned to the house during the truce, they found the building reduced to ruins.
A Palestinian youth wraps a bandolier of spent bullets leftover by the Israeli army, next to his destroyed home in Beit Hanoun, Gaza Strip, Monday, Aug. 11, 2014. (AP Photo/Hatem Moussa)
Al Mezan, the human rights group, confirmed it was treating the Wahdans’ case as a possible war crime.
Mahmoud Abu Rahma, its communications and international relations director, pointed out that houses used as “civilian dwelling places” should be immune from harm.
“We can say that the first house was attacked wantonly and deliberately with the knowledge that there were people inside. Direct attacks on houses are grave breaches of international law and may amount to war crimes,” added Mr Abu Rahma.
The prospect of outside investigation of the conduct of Israeli forces in Gaza has already caused concern within the country’s government.
Last week, Benjamin Netanyahu, the prime minister, denounced the committee appointed by the United Nations Human Rights Council to look into possible war crimes.
The body’s Canadian chairman, William Schabas, a professor of international law at London’s Middlesex University, is viewed as being particularly biased against Israel. “The report of this committee has already been written,” said Mr Netanyahu.
FILE PHOTO: Last week, Benjamin Netanyahu, the prime minister, denounced the committee appointed by the United Nations Human Rights Council to look into possible war crimes.
The body’s Canadian chairman, William Schabas, a professor of international law at London’s Middlesex University, is viewed as being particularly biased against Israel. CHRIS MIKULA, The OTTAWA CITIZEN
Anticipating the accusations, the Israel Defence Forces announced that its own committee, headed by Major General Noam Tibon, would investigate dozens of “exceptional cases” of civilians being killed or harmed.
Joseph Shapira, Israel’s state comptroller, also promised an inquiry into the country’s civilian and military leadership during the Gaza offensive.
Human rights groups say that past experience allows little confidence in Israel’s willingness thoroughly to investigate allegations of war crime levelled against its own forces.
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