Israel: Gaza Beach Investigation Ignores Evidence IDF’s Partisan Probe No Substitute for Independent Inquiry (Jerusalem, June 20, 2006) – The Israel Defense Forces’ (IDF) investigation of the Gaza beach explosion that killed eight Palestinian civilians and wounded dozens is incomplete because it excludes important evidence, Human Rights Watch said today. Human Rights Watch researchers met yesterday with Israeli Major-General Meir Kalifi, who led the internal IDF investigation, to discuss its findings. After the meeting, Human Rights Watch reiterated its call for an independent investigation into the deaths. |
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The meeting revealed that the IDF’s conclusion that it was not responsible for the deaths on the beach was based exclusively on information gathered by the IDF and excluded all evidence gathered by other sources. Its investigation centered on mathematical models said to show a “statistical impossibility” that a shell fired by IDF artillery was responsible for killing the civilians. The reliability of such a conclusion should be evaluated by independent experts with access to the underlying data. |
“An investigation that refuses to look at contradictory evidence can hardly be considered credible,” said Marc Garlasco, senior military analyst at Human Rights Watch. “The IDF’s partisan approach highlights the need for an independent, international investigation.”
Kalifi told Human Rights Watch that Palestinians “have no problem lying,” and that the IDF discounted information gathered from any Palestinian information sources in its investigation.
The day after the incident, the IDF asked the official Palestinian security liaison office to provide evidence for testing, but later dismissed the evidence provided, which consisted of 155mm shrapnel, both new and old, and dirt from the beach and crater. When offered evidence collected first-hand by Human Rights Watch researchers in Gaza, the general either called it into question or declined to accept it. During the two-and-a-half hour meeting with Kalifi, the IDF agreed with Human Rights Watch that it is possible that unexploded ordnance from a 155mm artillery shell fired earlier in the day could have caused the fatal injuries. The IDF fired more than 80 155mm shells in the area of the beach on the morning of the incident. Sand would increase the possibility of a fuse malfunction leading to a dud shell that may have sat in the sand waiting to be set off. The shelling between 4:31 p.m. and 4:50 p.m. could have triggered a dud shell, as could the human traffic on the beach that afternoon. |
Document Sources: Human Rights Watch
Subject: Incidents, Situation in the OPT including Jerusalem
Publication Date: 20/06/2006