Israeli forces killed hundreds of Palestinian civilians and destroyed thousands of Gaza Strip homes in attacks that amounted to war crimes, Amnesty International charged Thursday. 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. And it urged Gaza's Hamas rulers to stop rocket fire against Israeli civilians – attacks it also described as war crimes. Israel charged that Amnesty “succumbed to the manipulations of the Hamas terror organization” and Hamas accused the rights group of downplaying the scale of the destruction Israel left behind. Amnesty said “disturbing questions” remain about why high-precision weapons like tank shells and air-delivered bombs and missiles “killed so many children and other civilians.” More than 1,400 Palestinians, including about 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 1,100. It says the vast majority of the dead were militants, though it has refused requests to provide a list of the dead. Amnesty says some 300 children and hundreds of other unarmed civilians were among the dead. The Israeli military rejected the report's findings, saying it did not properly recognize “the unbearable reality of nine years of incessant and indiscriminate rocket fire on the citizens of Israel.” Hamas also denounced the report. “The report equated the victim and the executioner and denied our right to resist the occupation,” said spokesman Fawzi Barhoum.
