MIDDLE EAST: Rights group says Israel committed "war crime" in Gaza

Israel's bombing of a power plant in the Gaza Strip earlier this year was disproportionate and constitutes a war crime under international law, an Israeli human rights group said on Wednesday (September 27). Israeli war planes bombed and largely destroyed the power plant outside Gaza City on June 28, three days after Palestinian militants abducted an Israeli soldier in a cross-border raid from Gaza. The soldier is still being held. The bombing cut off electricity to much of Gaza's 1.4 million residents, affecting hospitals and food supplies, and had a knock-on impact on the water and sewage systems. "The bombing of the power plant was illegal and defined as a war crime in international humanitarian law as the attack was aimed at a purely civilian object," rights group B'Tselem said in a report entitled "Act of Vengeance". "The local effects that are being felt in the Gaza Strip to this day influence the health care system, the water system, the sewage system, small businesses are being affected by the lack of electricity. Almost every Gazan has experienced the harsh impact of this illegal action by the Israeli army," B'Tselem communication director Sarit Michaeli said. "Clearly this attack did nothing to help with the efforts of releasing Corporal Gilad Shalit and bringing him back to Israel. Our research indicates that the only motive possibly for this attack was just satisfying the need for revenge and imposing collective punishment on a civilian population," Michaeli added. B'Tselem, an independent group that monitors Israel's occupation of the West Bank and its policies in Gaza, called on the Israeli government to open a criminal investigation into the bombing and prosecute those responsible for the attack. It also called on the government to pay to rebuild the 150 million U.S. dollar (USD) plant, an operation which is expected to take nearly a year. Israel said at the time that it bombed the plant to cut power supplies and therefore make it more difficult for militants to operate and to transfer the captured soldier. Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Mark Regev said that Israel considered the attack on the Gaza power plant legal by international standards. "International law is clear that if civilian infrastructure is being mutualised by the war machine of the enemy you are entitled to target that infrastructure. That is why in wars you can target bridges if they are used by the enemy to carry supplies or ammunitions, you can hit other infrastructure targets, a power station is the same," Regev told Reuters Television in Jerusalem. The United Nations in July described the bombing of the 140-megawatt facility as a disproportionate use of force and said it had contributed to worsening humanitarian problems in the Gaza Strip. ad/lm/jrc

ITN Source | September 27, 2006

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