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Press release
Israeli helicopters bombard Palestinian refugee camp, killing two Palestinian civilians
Date: 19 February 2002
Re: 21/2002
Two Palestinians civilians were killed and 10 wounded, including two children, when Israeli helicopters fired missiles at a media office of the Hamas movement in the Jabalya refugee camp, in the northern Gaza strip.
At approximately 11.45 today, an Israeli helicopter gunship fired at least one missile into the office, killing Eyad Khalifa Abu Safiya, 23, an employee, and Mohammed Ali Hamdan, 25, a visitor. According to initial information gathered by a PCHR fieldworker, 10 civilian bystanders were injured, including two children living in the building: Inas Ibrahim ‘Eissa Salah, 9, and ‘Eissa Mahmoud ‘Eissa Salah, 14, both wounded by shrapnel throughout their bodies.
The Hamas media office attacked today is located on the ground floor of a four-storey apartment building owned by Mohammed ‘Eissa Mahmoud Abu Salah. Three families, consisting of 22 people, live in the building.
It is unclear at this time as to whether the attack was an assassination specifically targeting either Abu Safiya or Hamdan. Regardless, PCHR condemns the indiscriminate and excessive use of firepower by Israeli occupying forces against densely populated civilian residential areas. PCHR also notes with growing alarm the increasing regularity of aerial bombardment against Palestinian civilian areas in the Gaza strip and the lack of concrete steps by the international community against such attacks.
PCHR also reaffirms that Israel’s policy of extra-judicially executing those it accuses of armed activities is illegal and is a grave breach of the Fourth Geneva Convention. Israel’s assassination policy involves no presentation of evidence, attempt at arrest, or recourse to judicial procedure. Moreover, assassination operations are frequently carried out using helicopter gunships against civilian areas, posing an unacceptable risk to bystanders. Such assassinations also dramatically escalate tensions in the conflict. Since the beginning of the al-Aqsa Intifada Israeli occupying forces have carried out at least 59 assassination operations in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT), in which 86 Palestinians have been killed, 20 of whom were bystanders, including 5 children.
PCHR calls upon the international community to fulfill its legal and moral obligations and to take concrete and immediate steps to secure Israel’s respect for the Fourth Geneva Convention and to end its 35-year belligerent occupation of the Gaza strip and West Bank (including east Jerusalem). Furthermore, PCHR calls upon the international community to provide immediate, impartial, and effective protection for Palestinian civilians living in the OPT.
