In its early May attack on the besieged Gaza Strip, the Israeli occupation unlawfully destroyed Palestinian homes, in what is considered collective punishment against the Palestinian civilians, Amnesty International said Tuesday, June 13, 2023.
Amnesty International investigated nine Israeli airstrikes that resulted in the killing of civilians and in the damage and destruction of residential buildings in the Gaza Strip, saying it’s a part of the Israeli apartheid regime.
It said three separate attacks on the first night on 9 May, in which precision-guided bombs targeted three senior Al-Quds Brigades commanders, killed 10 Palestinian civilians, and injured at least 20 others.
“It has been a month since the ceasefire agreement between Israeli authorities and Palestinian armed groups, but the suffering that these recurrent Israeli offensives inflict upon the civilian population in the Gaza Strip never ceases,” said Heba Morayef, Middle East and North Africa Regional Director at Amnesty International.
She added, “In our investigation, we heard vivid accounts of bombs obliterating homes, of fathers digging their little girls out from under the rubble, of a teenager fatally injured as she lay in bed holding a teddy bear. More frightening than any of this is the near certainty that, unless perpetrators are held to account, these horrifying scenes will be repeated.”
At 2 am on 9 May, Israeli air strikes hit a two-story building in the al-Sha’af district in Gaza City with a GBU-39 bomb, a small diameter bomb manufactured by Boeing Defense, Space & Security, and exported to Israel from the United States, Amnesty documented.
It confirmed that Israeli occupation deliberately intensified the bombing of Palestinian civilian homes in the Gaza Strip, including a house inhabited by people with disabilities.
On May 13, Israeli warplanes targeted a four-story building for the Nabhan family in the Jabalia refugee camp, which was home to 42 Palestinians, five of whom live with disabilities.
Amnesty International said its research found no evidence that the Nabhan building and other damaged buildings in the last two days of the assault had been used to store weapons or any other military equipment or that rockets had been launched from the vicinity.
“The unlawful attacks on Palestinian homes and the illegal blockade imposed on Gaza since 2007, are part and parcel of Israel’s apartheid system against Palestinians which amounts to the crime against humanity of apartheid under both the Apartheid Convention and the Rome Statute,” Amnesty International concluded its report.
On 9 May, Israeli warplanes began a five-day offensive on Gaza, killing 34 Palestinians and wounding 147 others, including 24 children, 13 women, and 3 elderly.
2,943 housing units have been damaged, including 103 completely destroyed homes.
At least 1,244 Palestinians have been displaced due to the Israeli onslaught on the Gaza Strip, according to the Ministry of Social Development in Gaza.
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