Gaza government rejects Israeli claims that towers used by Hamas
Gaza’s Government Media Office has rejected Israel’s claims that the high-rise residential buildings flattened in recent strikes were being used by Hamas for military purposes.
“We refute, in full and in detail, the lies and allegations propagated by the Israeli occupation to justify its barbaric aggression,” it said in a statement. “We affirm unequivocally, based on the testimony of the residents of these towers, that they are under surveillance, and only civilians are permitted to enter them.”
The office said Israel’s claims are “part of a systematic policy of deception used by the occupation to justify the targeting of civilians and infrastructure” and that its actions constitute “forced displacement”, which is illegal under international law.
Israeli army attacks on civilians a ‘war crime’
The Israeli army’s targeting of civilian areas without any military target is very difficult to call “anything other than what it is, war crimes”, Toby Cadman, an international human rights lawyer, has told Al Jazeera.
“It has been clearly announced that this was the intention of the Israeli government … we have to ask ourselves, what actually more needs to happen before there’s any real action taken?
“Israel will always say that they’re targeting these areas because they’re being used by Hamas and Hamas is using civilians as shields, but that’s always the excuse that the Israelis cling to, that’s not a justification.”
He explained that if you have one suspected Hamas fighter in a civilian building with several hundred civilians, then that “is not justification to target that and take out that building”.
He said that the real aim of the Israeli military in targeting a civilian area is “to force the residents out, because that’s the ultimate objective of the current Israeli government”.
Palestinians fleeing south, ride a truck with their belongings, on the coastal road near the Nuseirat refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip
