U.N. Report: Israel Targeted Civilians in Gaza

Posted by Tana Ganeva, AlterNet at 4:00 PM on March 23, 2009.

International reaction to Israel’s assault on Gaza last December tended to follow a consistent narrative arc: An international rights group issues a report decrying Israel’s military conduct in Gaza; their account is largely supported by on-the-ground reports by many Israeli soldiers; conservative Israeli politicians deny the allegations and disparage the organization that reports them; the corporate U.S. media, to no one’s surprise, fails to cover the story.

Any guesses on whether our brave, venerable media will prominently feature a U.N. report released today that details the human rights abuses committed by Israel during the Gaza assault?

Reuters reports on the findings:

"Civilian targets, particularly homes and their occupants, appear to have taken the brunt of the attacks, but schools and medical facilities have also been hit," said one report by Radhika Coomaraswamy, the U.N. Secretary-General's Special Representative for Children and Armed Conflict.

The Sri Lankan human rights lawyer visited the region in early February. She cited a long series of incidents to back her charges.

In one, she said, Israeli soldiers shot a father after ordering him out of his house and then opened fire into the room where the rest of the family was sheltering, wounding the mother and three brothers and killing a fourth.

In another, on January 15, at Tal al Hawa south-west of Gaza City, Israeli soldiers forced an 11-year-old boy to walk in front of them for several hours as they moved through the town, even after they had been shot at.

An Israeli commander in the 22-day Gaza invasion said on Monday Israel's efforts to protect troops from Palestinian fire may have contributed to unwarranted killing of civilians.

Tagged as: israel, human rights, gaza, civilians