Israeli forces killed hundreds of Palestinian civilians and destroyed thousands of Gaza Strip homes in attacks that amounted to war crimes, Amnesty International charged yesterday in the first in-depth human rights group report on the recent war in Gaza.
Amnesty called on Israel to publicly pledge not to use artillery, white phosphorus and other imprecise weapons in densely populated areas. It also urged Gaza's militant Hamas rulers to stop rocket fire against Israeli civilians; attacks it also described as war crimes. Israel and Hamas both denounced the report as unbalanced. Israel charged that Amnesty ''succumbed to the manipulations of the Hamas terror organisation'' and Hamas accused the human rights group of down playing the scale of the destruction Israel left behind.
Amnesty, which first accused Israel of war crimes shortly after the fighting ended on January 18, said ''disturbing questions'' remained about why high-precision weapons such as tank shells and air-delivered bombs and missiles ''killed so many children and other civilians''.
The group deplored Israel's use of less-precise artillery shells and highly incendiary white phosphorous in built-up areas. It also accused Israeli forces of using Palestinians as ''human shields'' and frequently blocking civilians from receiving medical care and humanitarian aid.
The pattern of Israeli attacks and the high number of civilian casualties ''showed elements of reckless conduct, disregard for civilian lives and property and a consistent failure to distinguish between military targets and civilians and civilian objects,'' Amnesty International said.
More than 1400 Palestinians, including more than 900 civilians, were killed during the three-week offensive, according to Gaza health officials and human rights groups.
Israel, which launched the war to halt years of rocket and mortar attacks on its southern communities, puts the death toll closer to 1100.
Amnesty said about 300 children and hundreds of other unarmed civilians were among the dead. Thirteen Israelis also were killed, including three civilians.
The Israeli military rejected the report's findings, saying it did not properly recognise ''the unbearable reality of nine years of incessant and indiscriminate rocket fire on the citizens of Israel''.
The report, the military added, ignored the military's efforts to minimise civilian casualties in a battlefield where Hamas used residential areas, medical facilities, schools and mosques as cover to stage attacks.
The 117-page Amnesty report also denounced Hamas for firing rockets into Israel.
''Such unlawful attacks constitute war crimes and are unacceptable,'' it said.
Hamas denounced the report, which was based on physical evidence and testimony that a team of four researchers, including a military expert, gathered from dozens of attack sites in Gaza and southern Israel during and after the war.
It broke little new ground, concentrating on issues that have been dealt with in other frameworks. AP