By Tom Rayner, Middle East Reporter, in Jerusalem
Amnesty International has claimed Israeli forces "flouted the laws of war" on numerous occasions during this summer's conflict in Gaza, resulting in the deaths of civilians.
The group's latest report, Families Under The Rubble, examined a series of airstrikes on Palestinian homes during "Operation Protective Edge".
Some of the strikes resulted in entire families being killed.
It focuses on eight incidents in which a total of 111 people were killed, of whom at least 104 were civilians, with 66 children among them.
Amnesty claims the cases indicate that Israel failed to observe its obligations under international law to limit the risk to civilian lives.
One Gaza block of apartments allegedly hit by Israeli airstrikes
"Israeli forces have brazenly flouted the laws of war by carrying out a series of attacks on civilian homes, displaying callous indifference to the carnage caused," said Philip Luther, Amnesty's Middle East Director.
Throughout the conflict, the Israeli military issued numerous statements insisting they were doing all they could to protect civilians.
They accused militants from Hamas and other organisations of being responsible, as a result of hiding in civilian areas and using residents as human shields.
Although the Amnesty investigation did identify named individuals who may have been the targets in some of the cases, the report claims Israel has failed to explain why the targeting of those individuals justified the huge loss of civilian life.
The most deadly airstrike examined was that on the three-storey al-Dali building in Khan Younis on 29 July, in which 36 members of four families were killed, including 18 children.
The airstrike in Khan Younis was the deadliest, the Amnesty report claimed
Amnesty identified one of the building's residents, Ahmad Muammar, an engineer for Islamic Jihad, as the likely target of the strike.
Witnesses told Amnesty investigators how Muammar used a room inside the house for work using computers and electronics.
The second most deadly case documented occurred in Khan Younis on 20 July, when 24 civilians, including 19 children, were killed following an airstrike on the Abu Jame house.
Amnesty believes a member of the Hamas armed wing may have been standing near the house.
In both cases, the report claims Israel has failed to explain what the targets were or why they justified the clear risk to civilians.
"The onus is on Israeli officials to explain why they chose to deliberately flatten entire homes of civilians (...) even if a fighter had been present in one of these residential homes, it would not absolve Israel of its obligation to take every feasible precaution to protect the lives of civilians caught up in the fighting," Mr Luther added.
Nearly 2,200 Palestinians died during the 50-day war in Gaza between July and August. UN figures suggest at least 1,523 of those killed were civilians.
During the conflict Hamas and other militant groups in Gaza fired thousands of rockets into Israel, resulting in the death of six civilians, including one child. Some 66 Israeli soldiers were killed over the course of Operation Protective Edge.
:: The Israeli government issued a statement in response to the Amnesty report:
Amnesty's report on this summer's conflict between Israel and the Hamas terror group accuses Israel of wrongdoing while producing no evidence. At the same time the report ignores documented war crimes perpetrated by Hamas, including the use of human shields, as well as ammunition storage and firing at Israeli civilian population centres from within schools, hospitals, mosques and civilian neighbourhoods in Gaza.
The report does not mention the word terror in relation to Hamas or other armed Palestinian groups, nor mentions tunnels built by Hamas to infiltrate Israel and perpetrate terror attacks.
By ignoring the nature of the enemy Israel faced in Gaza - a terror group recognised as such by the European Union, the United States and others - Amnesty's report fails to contribute to the important discussion needed to solve the conflict.
Instead, Amnesty serves as a propaganda tool for Hamas and other terror groups.
In Israel, investigations are currently underway by several bodies, inside and outside the Israel Defence Forces, into over 90 incidents. Two criminal investigations are underway.
These measures are dismissed by Amnesty as insufficient yet in comparison to Israel's rigorous procedures Amnesty's own methodology raises questions: The report was not written by Amnesty staff but by local contractors not mentioned by name and referred to only as "field workers".
Their own credibility in producing the testimonies detailed in the report is never questioned; independent verification of their claims apparently not deemed necessary.
The extreme bias of the report is best displayed in its recommendations: Hamas is not mentioned, as if the group has no responsibility for the bloodshed; meanwhile, the report dismisses Israel's security challenges.
Amnesty should understand that producing a narrow, decontextualised report restricts its capability to advance positive change.
