Group slams Israel forces
Güncelleme Tarihi:
The Associated Press
Oluşturulma Tarihi: Temmuz 03, 2009 00:00
JERUSALEM - Israeli forces killed hundreds of Palestinian civilians and destroyed thousands of Gaza Strip homes in attacks that amounted to war crimes, Amnesty International charged Thursday, in the first in-depth human rights group report on the recent war in Gaza.
Amnesty called on Israel to publicly pledge not to use artillery, white phosphorus and other imprecise weapons in densely populated areas. And it urged Gaza's Hamas rulers to stop rocket fire against Israeli civilians - attacks it also described as war crimes. Israel and Hamas both denounced the report as unbalanced. Israel charged that Amnesty "succumbed to the manipulations of the Hamas terror organization" and Hamas accused the rights group of downplaying the scale of the destruction Israel left behind. Amnesty - which first accused Israel of war crimes on Jan. 18 - said "disturbing questions" remain about why high-precision weapons like tank shells and air-delivered bombs "killed so many children and other civilians."