More than half of nearly 1,400 Palestinians killed in Israel’s Gaza War were civilians, including 252 children younger than 16, a leading Israeli human rights groups said yesterday, challenging Israel’s claim that most of the dead were militants.
Determining the number of civilian casualties is seen as key in the ongoing debate over whether Israel, along with Hamas, violated the rules of war in its three-week offensive against Gaza’s Hamas rulers last winter.
International human rights groups have said they suspect both sides committed war crimes — Israel by using disproportionate force in crowded Gaza, and Hamas by hiding behind civilians and indiscriminately firing rockets at Israeli towns.
The Israeli rights group B’Tselem yesterday published figures it said were compiled in months of research, including visits to families of victims. It said 1,387 Gazans were killed, including 773 civilians and 330 combatants. Thirteen Israelis also died, including four civilians.
The high number of Palestinian civilian deaths should compel the Israeli government to launch an independent investigation, the group said, adding that it considers the army’s internal probe flawed.
The military has acknowledged “rare mishaps” in its conduct during the war, but has denied it violated international humanitarian law. Israel refuses to cooperate with a UN war crimes investigation, alleging bias.
B’Tselem wrote that “the extremely heavy civilian casualties and the massive damage to civilian property require serious introspection on the part of Israeli society.”
The military has put the Gaza death toll at 1,166, including 709 combatants and 295 civilians, but has refused to release a list of names or other evidence. The military said yesterday it believed B’Tselem’s findings were based on flawed research, including reliance on what it said were exaggerated death tolls by Palestinian human rights groups.
Two Palestinian human rights groups have put the Gaza death toll at just more than 1,400 and — like B’Tselem — released lists of names.
One explanation for some of the discrepancies between the army’s figures and those of the human rights researchers is the definition of who is a combatant.
In defining combatants, B’Tselem included militants who are generally involved in fighting, even if at the moment of attack they are not taking part in hostilities.
The Israeli military appears to have used a more sweeping definition. During the war, Israeli officials said anyone involved with Hamas should consider himself a target.
Meanwhile, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez accused Israel of genocide against the Palestinian people, telling a French newspaper that the bombing of Gaza late last year was an unprovoked attack.
“The question is not whether the Israelis want to exterminate the Palestinians. They’re doing it openly,” Chavez said in an interview with Le Figaro published yesterday.
Chavez, who has just completed a tour of Middle Eastern and Arab countries, brushed aside Israeli assertions that its attack on Gaza was a response to rocket fire from Islamist group Hamas which rules the coastal enclave.
“What was it if not genocide? ... The Israelis were looking for an excuse to exterminate the Palestinians,” Chavez said, adding that sanctions should have been slapped on Israel.
In other news, a report yesterday said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was in Moscow to discuss Russian arms sales to arch-foes Iran and Syria, amid speculation over his mysterious disappearance.
The Yediot Aharonot daily, citing anonymous sources, said Netanyahu flew to Moscow on Monday.
Asked to comment on the report, Netanyahu’s office reiterated that the prime minister had spent Monday at the headquarters of the Mossad foreign intelligence agency.
No immediate comment was available from the Russian authorities.
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