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12:30pm Gaza Time (+2hrs GMT)
The Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) has continued its
military operation in the Gaza Strip for the fifth day. Today,
it targeted an ambulance and its medical crew with a missile,
killing a doctor and an orderly and critically injuring its
driver. According to Al Mezan Center's monitoring, the number of
Palestinian casualties since the start of Israel's Operation
Cast Lead at 11:30am on 27 December 2008 has risen to 315, of
whom 41 were children and 9 women. At least 939 people have been
injured, including 85 children and 52 women. The number of
civilian objects that have been destroyed is as follows:
- 112 houses have been destroyed completely and approximately
3,500 houses damaged;
- 7 mosques have been completely destroyed from direct air
strikes;
- 38 private industrial and agricultural enterprises have
been completely destroyed;
- 16 schools have been damaged;
- 9 CBO offices were completely destroyed;
- 8 private vehicles were destroyed;
- 16 governmental facilities were destroyed.
Moreover, 20 security installations were targeted and
destroyed. All of these targets were struck from the air.
Hundreds of heavy missiles have been fired on the Gaza Strip,
some of which on open fields.
Today, at approximately 1:50am, an Israeli aircraft fired a
missile at an ambulance that arrived in the Jabal Al-Rayis
neighborhood in northeast of Gaza City after a call to rescue
injured people. The crew, a doctor, driver and orderly, were
targeted just after they stepped out of the ambulance. As a
result, the orderly, 30-year-old Mohammed Sa'eed Abu Hasira, was
killed immediately. The doctor, 33-year-old Ihab Al-Madhoun,
died from the wounds he sustained in this attack later in the
morning. The driver, 30-year-old Hishmat Ajour, sustained
critical wounds and is still at hospital.
Meanwhile, the health sector in Gaza has continued to suffer
from the very high number of casualties and injuries it has been
forced to deal with under severe shortages in medical
necessities, which is the result of the Israeli prolonged siege
on the Gaza Strip. Many health facilities have little materials
and dozens of wounded people face greater threats on their life
as a result.
Al Mezan Center for Human Rights asserts, according to its
monitoring of the situation on the ground, that the IOF has
perpetrated grave breaches of the International Humanitarian Law
(IHL), amounting to war crimes and crimes against humanity, in
the course of its military actions in Gaza. The Center also
asserts that the vast majority of IOF's targets in Gaza are
civilian targets that must not be deliberately targeted. This
includes houses, mosques, police stations and at least one
ambulance. Most of the casualties are not combatants and were
not involved in any hostilities when they were targeted by IOF.
This behavior reflects a blatant disregard of civilian life and
of the international law that is supposed to protect it.
Al Mezan Center condemns the IOF's violations of
international law rules applicable in times of belligerent
occupation and armed conflict. In particular, the violations by
IOF of the Fourth Geneva Convention and its Protocol I have
caused extreme suffering as well as loss of civilian life.
Articles 15-19 of the Convention prohibit the disruption of the
working of health facilities during times of conflict. Article
20 requires respect and protection of the persons who are
involved in the search for civilians, the sick, the wounded, the
elderly and mothers and care for them. IOF violates IHL by
imposing a strangulating blockade that disrupts, and sometimes
prevents, the provision of humanitarian aid to the population of
the Gaza Strip.
As such, and as the silence of international community
continues to allow for such violations of IHL and human rights
standards; including the perpetration of war crimes in Gaza, Al
Mezan Center calls upon the international community to uphold
its legal and ethical obligations by taking effective measures
to ensure Israel's compliance with the applicable rules of
international law, and to ensure the protection of civilians and
civilian objects in Gaza. Al Mezan finds it ironic that
international community continues to call for such compliance
while it must act to ensure it, to protect and aid civilians,
and to prevent the perpetration of grave breaches of IHL.
Al Mezan Center welcomes the popular protests against the
Israeli violations of human rights and IHL in Gaza, and the
worldwide solidarity with its people. The Center calls on civil
societies to double their efforts to exert pressure of their
governments so that they act in conformity with their human
rights and humanitarian obligations.
END
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