Amnesty International has urged the International Criminal Court to investigate as war crimes three recent Israeli strikes that killed 44 Palestinian civilians, including 32 children, AFP reports.
Amnesty said three Israeli strikes — one on the al-Maghazi refugee camp in central Gaza on April 16, and two on Rafah in southern Gaza on April 19 and 20 — are “further evidence of a broader pattern of war crimes” committed by the Israeli military in Gaza.
“The cases documented here illustrate a clear pattern of attacks over the past seven months in which the Israeli military has flouted international law, killing Palestinian civilians with total impunity and displaying a callous disregard for human lives,” said Erika Guevara-Rosas, senior director at Amnesty.
The rights organisation has conducted its own investigation into the strikes, interviewing 17 survivors and witnesses and visiting a hospital where the wounded were being treated.
On April 16, an Israeli air strike on al-Maghazi refugee camp killed 10 children aged four to 15, and five men, the rights group said, adding that more than a dozen residents were wounded.
“The munition landed in the middle of a market street where children were playing around a foosball table,” Amnesty said.
A Palestinian child, wounded in an Israeli strike on an area designated for displaced people, is assisted at a hospital in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip on May 26, 2024, in this screengrab from a video obtained by Reuters.
Two of Jaber Nader Abu Jayab’s children were killed.
“I found my sister’s son, Mohammed (age 12). He was badly injured and died two days later,” the 34-year-old told Amnesty. “Then I found my daughter Mila,” aged four, he said.
“She was badly injured and was taken to the hospital, but when I went to the hospital about an hour later, I found that she had died shortly after.” “Then I saw my daughter Lujan, she was dead,” he said of the nine-year-old.
