What
has not been said in Amnesty International's
latest Report on the events of
summer 2014 in Gaza
The
efforts of Amnesty International (AI) are undeniably significant in monitoring
the developments in Palestine and other regions of the world, especially with
the wide impact of its reports within the international diplomatic, political
and legal circles. Nonetheless, AI's latest reports on the events of summer
2014 in Gaza Strip, entitled "Unlawful
and deadly: Rocket and mortar attacks by Palestinian armed groups during the
2014 Gaza/Israel conflict" does not reflect keenness on
impartial and comprehensive documentation. The report argues that the
Palestinian armed factions committed acts that can be classified as war crimes
from two perspectives: the first is that it launched rockets randomly against
civilian Israelis, and the second is that it launched a rocket that accidently
hit Al-Shati' refugee camp in the Strip, which led to the death of 13
Palestinian children according to an independent munitions expert, as per AI's
document. The report concludes that the acts of the Palestinian armed factions
"demonstrate what is, at best, a reckless disregard for the lives of
civilians in Israel, as well as a consistent failure to take all feasible
precautions to protect civilians in Gaza from the effects of attacks"; and
calls for urgently suspending all transfers of arms, munitions, weapons and
military equipment to Israel and Palestinian armed groups.
Hence,
the next question raised by the report's conclusions is that: What are the
other alternatives for the Gaza Strip under the heavy and indiscriminate
Israeli shelling and bombardments? The report's arguments are true but they
fail to accurately reflect the broader context and to document the wider
scenario; especially as it equates between the occupation and the occupied, and
calls for suspending arms flow to both, while in fact, the Israeli arms
industry is a leading world exporter of military supplies and advanced military
technologies, and also in fact, the Gaza Strip does not include even a port
that does export or import any item!.
The
Organization's report does not point out to the notable improvement in the
performance of the Palestinian resistance, where the majority of the
causalities by the resistance rockets were soldiers (63 Israeli soldier
according to the Israeli official reports), contrasted to the 2,400 civilian
Palestinians killed by the Israeli army during the same events. AI's report
skips this fact to leave thus an inaccurate impact towards what has been the
situation actually on ground.
The
report also addresses the need for storing arms, explosives and ammunition in
areas that are distant from civilian communities, but it does not suggest where
actually taking into consideration that high population density [among the highest
if not the highest in the world] in the Gaza Strip? As if the report is
impliedly urging for the disarmament of the resistance forces in Gaza Strip, in
facing an inhumane and heavily armed fierce Occupation. And if it is possible
that this is a misreading, we would be grateful for further clarifications by
Amnesty.
Beirut,
31/3/2015
Dr.
Mahmoud El-Hanafi
Director
of the Palestinian Association
for Human Rights (Witness)