Palestinian girl Manar Al-Shinbari (R) is helped by her sister to put on her headscarf in an apartment in Jabaliya refugee camp in the northern Gaza Strip 1/13). The girl's family house was destroyed by Israeli shelling during the war. REUTERS/Mohammed Salem
TEMPO.CO, Tel Aviv – Israeli rights group B’Tselem has criticized the government for deliberately launching air strikes on homes that killed hundreds of civilians during Gaza war last year.
In a report by B’Tselem on Wednesday, Israeli officials launched 70 raids on residential buildings in the Palestinian territory that killed at least 2,200 Palestinians.
"A hallmark of the fighting in Gaza this summer was the numerous [Israeli] strikes on residential buildings, destroying them while their occupants were still inside," the 49-page report said.
"This aspect of the fighting was particularly appalling" and was "the result of a policy formulated by government officials and the senior military command."
In the cases B’Tselem investigated, 606 people were killed, 70 percent of whom were under 18, while the United Nations said 70 percent of those who were killed were civilians. The July-August conflict also killed 67 Israeli soldiers and five Israeli citizens.
