Israel/Gaza rockets and shelling violate laws of war

"Palestinian rocket attacks on Israeli towns and Israeli artillery strikes near populated areas in northern Gaza have caused hundreds of civilian casualties since September 2005 and constitute serious violations of the laws of war, Human Rights Watch" said in a report released yesterday.

The report says "both Palestinian armed groups and the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) have shown insufficient regard for civilian life. Palestinian armed groups, including Hamas, Islamic Jihad, Fatah's al-Aqsa Brigades, and the Popular Resistance Committees, say the deliberate attacks on civilians with locally made and highly inaccurate rockets, known as Qassams, are reprisals for Israeli actions – but reprisals against civilians are always illegal. A reported reduction by the IDF in the "safety zone" between artillery targets and civilian areas in Gaza, as well as a sharp escalation of shelling in April 2006 following the Hamas political takeover of the Palestinian Authority, led to a jump in civilian casualties."

"Tit-for-tat abuses can't be justified by arguing that the other side violated the law first: the laws of war are meant to protect civilians from harm, whatever the reason," said Joe Stork, deputy director of Human Rights Watch's Middle East division.

The Human Rights Watch report comes on the eve of a July 2 High Court hearing about an IDF policy that reportedly reduced the "safety zone" between artillery targets and civilian areas from 300 to 100 meters in April 2006. Human Rights Watch found that all fatalities and all but eight injuries from artillery fire between September 2005 and May 2007, which Israel claimed was in self-defense, occurred after this change in policy.

Worth noting that Hamas seems to greatly lack the ability to control the fire it directs towards Israel due to the primitive devices they use that lack the available technology that allows Israel's army to fire at Palestinian targets with accuracy.