Much of the destruction was wanton and resulted from direct attacks on civilian objects as
well as
indiscriminate attacks that
failed to distinguish between legitimate military targets
and civilian objects. Such attacks violated fundamental provisions of international
humanitarian law, notably the prohibition on direct attacks on civilians and civilian objects
(the principle of distinction), the prohibition on indiscriminate or disproportionate attacks,
and the prohibition on collective punishment.
Hundreds of civilians were killed in attacks carried out using high-precision weapons – airdelivered
bombs and missiles, and tank shells. Others, including women and children, were
shot at short range when posing no threat to the lives of the Israeli soldiers. Aerial
bombardments launched from Israeli F-16 combat aircraft targeted and destroyed civilian
homes without warning, killing and injuring scores of their inhabitants, often while they slept.
Children playing on the roofs of their homes or in the street and other civilians going about
their daily business, as well as medical staff attending the wounded were killed in broad
daylight by Hellfire and other highly accurate missiles launched from helicopters and
unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), or drones, and by precision projectiles fired from tanks.
Disturbing questions remain unanswered as to why such high-precision weapons, whose
operators can see even small details of their targets and which can accurately strike even fast
moving vehicles,1 killed so many children and other civilians.
Scores of civilians were also killed and injured by less precise weapons, such as artillery
shells and mortars, and flechette tank shells, which can be accurately aimed but which
disperse thousands of deadly metal darts at great velocity over a large area.
White phosphorus, a highly incendiary substance, was repeatedly fired indiscriminately over
densely populated residential areas, killing and wounding civilians and destroying civilian
property. It was often launched from artillery shells in air-burst mode, which aggravated the
already devastating consequences of the attacks. Each shell ejected over a hundred felt
wedges impregnated with highly incendiary white phosphorus, which rained down over houses
and streets, igniting on exposure to oxygen and setting fire to people and property....
...During Operation “Cast Lead” Israeli forces repeatedly took over Palestinian homes in the
Gaza Strip forcing families to stay in a ground-floor room while they used the rest of their
house as a military base and sniper position –
effectively using the families, both adults and
children, as “human shields” and putting them at risk.72 While soldiers wore protective body
armour and helmets and shielded themselves behind sandbags as they fired from the houses,
the Palestinian inhabitants of the houses had no such protection....
http://www.amnesty.org/en/library/a...a74-4853-860f-0563725e633a/mde150152009en.pdf