AMY TEIBEL JERUSALEM Israeli forces killed hundreds of Palestinian civilians and destroyed thousands of Gaza Strip homes in attacks that amounted to war crimes, Amnesty International charged yesterday, in the first in-depth human rights group report on the recent war in Gaza.

AMY TEIBEL
JERUSALEM

Israeli forces killed hundreds of Palestinian civilians and destroyed thousands of Gaza Strip homes in attacks that amounted to war crimes, Amnesty International charged yesterday, in the first in-depth human rights group report on the recent war in Gaza.

Amnesty called on Israel to publicly pledge not to use artillery, white phosphorus and other imprecise weapons in densely populated areas. It also urged Gaza's militant Hamas rulers to stop rocket fire against Israeli civilians - attacks it also described as war crimes.

Israel and Hamas both denounced the report as unbalanced. Israel charged that Amnesty "succumbed to the manipulations of the Hamas terror organisation" and Hamas accused the rights group of downplaying the scale of the destruction Israel left behind.

Amnesty - which first accused Israel of war crimes shortly after the fighting ended on January 18 - said "disturbing questions" remained about why high-precision weapons like tank shells and air-delivered bombs and missiles "killed so many children and other civilians".

The group also accused Israeli forces of using Palestinians as "human shields" and frequently blocking civilians from receiving medical care and humanitarian aid.

The pattern of Israeli attacks and the high number of civilian casualties "showed elements of reckless conduct, disregard for civilian lives and property and a consistent failure to distinguish between military targets and civilians and civilian objects," Amnesty International charged.

More than 1400 Palestinians, including more than 900 civilians, were killed during the three-week offensive, according to Gaza health officials and human rights groups.

Israel, which launched the war to halt years of rocket and mortar attacks on its southern communities, puts the death toll closer to 1100.

The Israeli military rejected the findings of the report, saying it did not properly recognise "the unbearable reality of nine years of incessant and indiscriminate rocket fire on the citizens of Israel".-AP