Israel's continued deadly attacks against Palestinians in Gaza ''must be investigated as war crimes,'' Amnesty International says.
The rights group says it has ''documented unlawful Israeli attacks, including indiscriminate attacks,'' describing Israel's actions on Gaza as a ''cataclysmic assault.''
Its researchers spoke with survivors and eyewitnesses, analysed satellite imagery, and verified photos and videos to investigate air bombardments carried out by Israeli forces between 7 and 12 October.
''Testimonies from eyewitness and survivors highlighted, again and again, how Israeli attacks decimated Palestinian families, causing such destruction that surviving relatives have little but rubble to remember their loved ones by,” Agnès Callamard, Amnesty International’s Secretary General says.
'Giant graveyard'
The attacks by Israeli forces have ''caused horrific destruction, and in some cases wiped out entire families,'' the group decries in a report titled: ''Damning evidence of war crimes as Israeli attacks wipe out entire families in Gaza'' released late on Friday.
The UK-based rights group condemned the Israeli attacks as ''unlawful'' and that it has carried out ''an in-depth analysis of its findings in five of these unlawful attacks.''
Some of the attacks on civilians could be deliberate, it says. At least 4,137 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli strikes on Gaza since the latest violence started on October 7.
''Israeli attacks violated international humanitarian law including by failing to take feasible precautions to spare civilians, or by carrying out indiscriminate attacks that failed to distinguish between civilians and military objectives, or by carrying out attacks that may have been directed against civilian objects,'' it says.
''For 16 years, Israel’s illegal blockade has made Gaza the world’s biggest open-air prison – the international community must act now to prevent it becoming a giant graveyard,'' Amnesty International cautions.
Arms embargo on Israel
It further called on Israeli forces to ''immediately end unlawful attacks'' in Gaza.
''Israel’s allies must immediately impose a comprehensive arms embargo given that serious violations under international law are being committed,” Amnesty International says.
This comes amid widespread condemnation of Western response to the Israeli continued killings of civilians in Gaza including by Human Rights Watch.
Amnesty International also calls on the Palestinian group Hamas and other armed groups to ''urgently release all civilian hostages, and to immediately stop firing indiscriminate rockets.''
''There can be no justification for the deliberate killing of civilians under any circumstances,” Amnesty's Secretary General Agnès Callamard says.
Amnesty International dismissed claims by the Israeli army that it only attacks military targets. ''In a number of cases, Amnesty International found no evidence of the presence of fighters or other military objectives in the vicinity at the time of the attacks,'' Agnès explains.
Decades of impunity
“Our research points to damning evidence of war crimes in Israel’s bombing campaign that must be urgently investigated,'' she says.
“It is vital that the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court urgently expedites its ongoing investigation into evidence of war crimes and other crimes under international law by all parties,'' Agnès adds.
The rights group's top official says ''decades of impunity and injustice and the unprecedented level of death and destruction of the current offensive will only result in further violence and instability in Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories.”
''Without justice and the dismantlement of Israel’s system of apartheid against Palestinians, there can be no end to the horrifying civilian suffering we are witnessing,” she points out.
