May 18, 2004
Amnesty International Criticizes Israel
Associated Press

Israel is guilty of war crimes in its destruction of thousands of Palestinian homes in the West Bank and Gaza Stri, the human rights group Amnesty International charged in a report Tuesday.

By LARA SUKHTIAN, Associated Press Writer

JERUSALEM - Israel is guilty of war crimes in its destruction of thousands of Palestinian homes in the West Bank and Gaza Strip (news - web sites), the human rights group Amnesty International charged in a report Tuesday.

Release of the report coincided with an Israeli operation in the Rafah refugee camp on the Israel-Egypt border, where Israel was poised to knock down more houses to widen a buffer zone in its battle against weapons-smuggling tunnels.

The report said the demolition and destruction are "grave breaches of the Fourth Geneva Convention and are war crimes," calling on Israel to halt the practices immediately. Amnesty also said the house demolitions are linked to Israeli intentions to take over West Bank and Gaza land.

According to the report, Israel has destroyed more than 3,000 Palestinian homes, most of them in the Gaza Strip, since Palestinian Israeli fighting broke out more than three years ago. The report also found that 10 percent of Gaza's agricultural land has been destroyed and more than 226,000 trees uprooted there in 2002 and 2003.

Israeli officials were not immediately available for comment but have stated in the past that house demolitions are necessary for security reasons. The Israeli army says that Palestinian militants often use Palestinian homes and agricultural land as cover to launch attacks. Also, they have discovered tunnel entrances under Rafah structures.

Amnesty countered that the destruction of homes, land and other property in the Palestinian territories is disproportionate to Israel's security needs.

Amnesty also accused Israel of collective punishment, demolishing homes and property of Palestinians who are not involved, even according to Israel, in attacks against Israel.

"This is the case with the majority of land and home destruction," said Donatella Rovera, from the Middle East program of the London-based human rights group and a co-author of the report.

Israel's practice of blowing up the homes of the families of suicide bombers is one form of punishment Amnesty criticized in the report. It said that since September 2000, when the current conflict erupted, there have been at least 600 such cases.

Along with calling on Israel to stop demolitions, the 65-page report also said Palestinian authorities should take "all possible measures" to stop attacks against Israelis and to keep militants from initiating armed confrontations from civilian areas.

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