- Details
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Written by Rory McCarthy in Jerusalem Rory McCarthy in Jerusalem
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Category: News News
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Published: 23 February 2009 23 February 2009
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Last Updated: 23 February 2009 23 February 2009
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Created: 23 February 2009 23 February 2009
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Hits: 4472 4472
For their part, Palestinian militants in Gaza were arming themselves
with "unsophisticated weapons" including rockets made in Russia, Iran
and China and bought from "clandestine sources", it said. About 1,300
Palestinians were killed and more than 4,000 injured during the
three-week conflict. On the Israeli side 13 were killed, including
three civilians. Amnesty said Israel's armed forces carried out "direct
attacks on civilians and civilian objects in Gaza, and attacks which
were disproportionate or indiscriminate". The Israeli military declined
to comment yesterday.
Palestinian militants also fired "indiscriminate rockets" at civilians,
Amnesty said. It called for an independent investigation into
violations of international humanitarian law by both sides.
Amnesty researchers in Gaza found several weapon fragments after the
fighting. One came from a 500lb (227kg) Mark-82 fin guided bomb, which
had markings indicating parts were made by the US company Raytheon.
They also found fragments of US-made white phosphorus artillery shells,
marked M825 A1.
On 15 January, several white phosphorus shells fired by the Israeli
military hit the headquarters of the UN Relief and Works Agency in Gaza
City, destroying medicine, food and aid. One fragment found at the
scene had markings indicating it was made by the Pine Bluff Arsenal,
based in Arkansas, in October 1991.
The human rights group said the Israeli military had used white
phosphorus in densely populated civilian areas, which it said was an
indiscriminate form of attack and a war crime. Its researchers found
white phosphorus still burning in residential areas days after the
ceasefire.
At the scene of an Israeli attack that killed three Palestinian
paramedics and a boy in Gaza City on 4 January, Amnesty found fragments
of an AGM114 Hellfire missile, made by Hellfire Systems of Orlando, a
joint venture of Lockheed Martin and Boeing. The missile is often fired
from Apache helicopters.
Amnesty said it also found evidence of a new type of missile,
apparently fired from unmanned drones, which exploded into many pieces
of shrapnel that were "tiny sharp-edged metal cubes, each between 2 and
4mm square in size".
"They appear designed to cause maximum injury," Amnesty said. Many
civilians were killed by this weapon, including several children, it
said.
Rockets fired by Palestinian militants were either 122mm Grad missiles
or short-range Qassam rockets, a locally made, improvised artillery
weapon. Warheads were either smuggled in or made from fertiliser.
The arsenal of weapons was on a "very small scale compared to Israel",
it said, adding that the scale of rocket arsenal deployed by Hizbullah
in the 2006 Lebanese war was "beyond the reach of Palestinian militant
groups".
Armed for war
Israelis Missiles launched from helicopters and unmanned drones,
including 20mm cannon and Hellfire missiles. Larger laser-guided and
other bombs dropped by F-16 warplanes. Extensive use of US-made 155mm
white phosphorus artillery shells and Israeli-made 155mm illuminating
shells that eject phosphorus canisters by parachute. Several deaths
caused by flechettes, 4cm-long metal darts packed into 120mm tank
shells, and fragments of US-made 120mm tank shells.
Palestinians Militants fired rockets into southern Israel including
122mm Grad rockets of either Russian, Chinese or Iranian manufacture,
and smaller, improvised Qassam rockets often made inside Gaza and
usually holding 5kg of explosives and shrapnel.