Ref: 22/ 2015
Date: 18 May 2015
Time: 12:00 GMT
The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) calls upon the competent authorities to seriously and urgently investigate the circumstances of an explosion that occurred in a paramilitary training site established in the center of a populated area in Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip. As a result of the explosion, 108 civilians, including 37 children and 32 women, sustained various wounds. Moreover, dozens of adjacent houses and shops were damaged. PCHR calls also for publishing the results of the investigation.
According to investigations conducted by PCHR, at approximately 19:00 on Thursday, 14 May 2015, a huge explosion occurred in a site belonging to Izziddin al-Qassam Brigades (the armed wing of Hamas) in al-Salatin neighborhood in Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip. As a result, the site was completely destroyed, and 108 civilians, including 37 children and 32 women, living in adjacent houses were wounded. The explosion also caused severe damages to 15 houses while dozens of houses and shops were partially damaged. Moreover, the windows of al-Khuzondar petrol station next to the site, an under-construction house, the schools of Um al-Fahem and Abu Ja’afar al-Mansour and al-‘Atatrah Clinic were broken.
The wounded persons were taken by civilian cars and ambulances to Martyr Kamal ‘Edwan Hospital in Beit Lahia, al-‘Awdah Hospital in Jabalaia and al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City. The conditions of five of the wounded were described between moderate to serious while the other injuries were described as minor.
According to the field investigations and sources in the Palestinian police, members of the Izziddin al-Qassam Brigades were dismantling a missile dropped by israeli warplanes during the latest summer offensive on the Gaza Strip in a site belonging to the Izziddin al-Qassam Brigades, which served in the past as a building of the General Intelligence Service, in the densely-populated al-Salatin neighborhood. While dismantling the missile, members of the Izziddin al-Qassam Brigades heard a whistling sound coming from the missile, so they fled away. A few minutes later, many explosions occurred inside the site resulting in the complete destruction of the site and damage of adjacent houses in addition to the injury of civilians.
Following the incident, the Izziddin al-Qassam Brigades issued a statement, in which they held Israel responsible for the explosion.
In light of the above, PCHR:
