Posted on 03/03/2008 12:54:28 PM PST by SmithL
The London-based human rights organization Amnesty International has condemned Israel's attacks on Gaza, claiming they are "being carried out with reckless disregard for civilian life."
"Israeli military attacks over the past few days have killed more than 75 Palestinians in Gaza, including at least 10 children, and other unarmed civilian bystanders not involved in the confrontations" Malcolm Smart, director of Amnesty's Middle East and North Africa program, said Sunday. "Israel has a legal obligation to protect the civilian population of Gaza. Such attacks are disproportionate and go beyond lawful measures which Israeli forces may take in response to rocket attacks by Palestinian armed groups."
A statement released by the organization said: "All unlawful attacks must stop - Israeli forces must put an immediate end to disproportionate attacks and collective punishment in Gaza and Palestinian armed groups must immediately stop the barrage of rockets into southern Israel."
"It is high time that the leaders of Hamas and the Palestinian Authority took effective steps to prevent and punish attacks on civilians in Israel, but their failure to do so does not make it legitimate for the Israeli authorities to launch reckless air and artillery strikes which wreak such death and destruction among Palestinian civilians," said Smart.
In its statement, Amnesty highlighted disproportionate casualty statistics in the conflict, saying that in the last two months, close to 200 Gazans, of whom around "one-third were unarmed civilian bystanders, including 15 children" have been killed." In the same period, the statement continued, "one Israeli civilian was killed and several injured by rocket fire," the statement said.
"We condemn all attacks on civilians, but unlawful attacks by one side cannot justify violations by the other," Smart said.
The statement said that IDF actions this week displayed a "disproportion and recklessness" that has "characterized" its operations in Palestinian territories.
At the same time, Amnesty argued, Palestinian armed groups who launched frequent rocket attacks from Gaza into nearby Israeli towns not only showed a "callous disregard" for the lives of Israeli civilians but also exposed their own population to Israeli counterattacks.
The Palis can lob indiscriminate missiles against Israel all the want no problem.
The pali’s live like cockroaches, and quite frankly, I am having trouble seeing the difference
I war there is no such thing as “disproportionate attacks”
You kill the enemy before the enemy can kill you!
This enemy hides behind the innocent, they use them as shields, and they know if this can get on TV, the liberal media will spin it as if Israel has done something wrong.
Remember we ended WW2 with a couple of NUKES! This made Japan surrender!
When you attack, you close with and KILL the ENEMY by all means available at your command.
AmNazi Internationale never seems to go after the Islamic Terrorists who indiscrimantly kill Israelis.
AmNazi nothing bunch of anti-Semites
How moronic do you have to be to go ‘oh, look, they’re launching rockets from that site, I should go stand near it...’ then complain that, gosh, you got killed because you’re an idiot who supports terrorists?
I suppose blindly lobbing missles into population centers is excusable behavior then?
How about the areas that they’re lobbing them
FROM?
If the Palis didn’t launch rockets from civilian neighborhoods, this wouldn’t be an issue.
Actually, if they met the IDF on the field of battle, combatant to combatant, this wouldn’t be an issue
(because they’d be wiped out like the cockroaches they are).
Did I miss their letter to the Palis ?
Hmm
immediate end to disproportionate attacks
Hmmmm Hmmmmm
Amnesty highlighted disproportionate
Hmmmmm. Hmmmm. Hmmmmm.
IDF actions this week displayed a "disproportion
Hmmmm. Hmmmmm. Hmmmmm. Hmmmmm.
They SURE learned the value of that word during the last Israeli/Hezbollah dustup, didn't they???
Expect to hear a disproportionate use of the word in the lefty playbook now and on into the future.
Let's see:
Lefties are disproportionately stupid.
Hey. I LIKE that word!!!
When there’s reckless disregard for Jewish life, no one seems to give an excrement.
What BS.There is No human life in Gaza.Only future Homicide bombers who won’t get a chance to murder on another day. Especially if their dead already.
Amnesty International is irrelevant.
When someone commits repeated acts of war against your Country and civilians there is no such thing as a disproportionate response. Anything less than massive, overwhelming retaliation is immoral because in the long run this results in less loss of life.
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