16 july 2020
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On 16 July 2014, Israeli missile killed four children of the same family on a beach in Gaza
What: Israeli missile kills four children of the same family on a beach in Gaza When: 16 July, 2014 Where: The Gaza Strip, occupied Palestine What happened? Israel’s military offensive on the Gaza Strip in 2014 — “Operation Strong Cliff” from 8 July until 26 August — was one its deadliest ever against the Palestinians besieged in the coastal strip of land. Aside from the destruction of the civilian infrastructure and its disproportionate use of air |
strikes, among the war crimes that Israel committed during this offensive was its often deliberate targeting of civilian areas. This was arguably the most shocking crime of all.
On the afternoon of 16 July, four children belonging to Bakr family ventured onto the beachfront at Gaza City’s small harbour, playing near the boats that their fathers used as fishermen to earn a living. During the offensive, Israel banned all Palestinian fishermen from going out in their boats and essentially closed the port.
As the four cousins – 11-year-old Mohammad Ramiz Bakr, 9-year-old Ismail Mahmoud Bakr, and Ahed Atef Bakr and Zakariya Ahed Bakr, both aged 10 – continued to play with other children from their family, Israeli forces shelled the area and the fishing boats. One of the boys was killed immediately. The other three children started running from the beach when a second shell killed them too. video
Three other members of the Bakr family were severely injured in the attack: 13-year-old Hamad Bakr was hit by shrapnel in the chest; 11-year-old Motasem Bakr was injured in his head and legs; and 21-year-old Mohammad Abu Watfah’s stomach was pierced by shrapnel.
A photographer for the New York Times, Tyler Hicks, witnessed the second strike after he heard “a loud, close blast.” He then heard the second blast while grabbing his equipment, later recalling that “I saw that boy running, and by the time I had reacted he was already dead. That’s the image that will stay with me.”
What happened next?
Following the killing of the four boys, the Israeli military admitted that it had conducted the strike and called it, dismissively, “a tragic outcome,” claiming that it mistook the children for Hamas militants. International outrage followed and Israel launched its own internal investigation into the killings, which was completed almost a year later in June 2015.
The resulting report essentially exonerated Israel from any responsibility: “The incident took place in an area that had long been known as a compound belonging to Hamas’s Naval Police and Naval Force (including naval commandos), and which was utilised exclusively by militants.” This compound, said the statement, “spans the length of the breakwater of the Gaza City seashore, closed off by a fence and clearly separated from the beach serving the civilian population.”
This was what the Israel military claimed, even though the hut around which the children were playing was in the clear sight of nearby hotels where international journalists were staying. All of them reported that they saw no militants in that area at the time of the strike.
The Israeli military statement continued, saying that it had “carried out a number of attacks on the compound in the days prior to the incident” and, in one attack the day before, “a container located inside the compound, which was used to store military supplies, was attacked.”
This, again, contradicts the accounts of many of the journalists who were there. The compound in question, they confirmed, was easily accessible to both fishermen and local Palestinians who visit the beach to swim and relax, therefore making it a poor location for Hamas to store its military supplies.
Furthermore, the container which the Israeli report described was found to have contained no military equipment when investigated.
In August 2018, it was revealed by The Intercept that a secret report by the Israeli military police said that the strikes were conducted without authorisation.
According to the leaked report, the Israeli drone operators confessed that they contacted their superiors after they killed the first child, seeking authorisation for the second strike and clarification on what to do about the fleeing children who they allegedly mistook for militants. The report states, however, that “less than a minute later, the drone operators decided to launch a second missile, killing three more children, despite never getting an answer to their question.”
The killing of the Bakr boys was, as far as many people are concerned, evidence that Israel was targeting civilians and civilian areas indiscriminately in the numerous air attacks that it has conducted on the Gaza Strip. It symbolised the killing of innocents by the Israeli military, children being regarded as blameless and easily distinguishable from Hamas fighters, and not connected at all to the politics in the name of which civilians are all too often crushed.
Barely three years later, Israel detained the Bakr family fishermen, while at least 1,500 homes destroyed in that same 2014 offensive still need to be rebuilt.
Six years later, justice for the Bakr family has yet to be seen. Israel’s “investigation” of its own war crime has made sure of that.
READ: Israel regrets withdrawing from Gaza
On the afternoon of 16 July, four children belonging to Bakr family ventured onto the beachfront at Gaza City’s small harbour, playing near the boats that their fathers used as fishermen to earn a living. During the offensive, Israel banned all Palestinian fishermen from going out in their boats and essentially closed the port.
As the four cousins – 11-year-old Mohammad Ramiz Bakr, 9-year-old Ismail Mahmoud Bakr, and Ahed Atef Bakr and Zakariya Ahed Bakr, both aged 10 – continued to play with other children from their family, Israeli forces shelled the area and the fishing boats. One of the boys was killed immediately. The other three children started running from the beach when a second shell killed them too. video
Three other members of the Bakr family were severely injured in the attack: 13-year-old Hamad Bakr was hit by shrapnel in the chest; 11-year-old Motasem Bakr was injured in his head and legs; and 21-year-old Mohammad Abu Watfah’s stomach was pierced by shrapnel.
A photographer for the New York Times, Tyler Hicks, witnessed the second strike after he heard “a loud, close blast.” He then heard the second blast while grabbing his equipment, later recalling that “I saw that boy running, and by the time I had reacted he was already dead. That’s the image that will stay with me.”
What happened next?
Following the killing of the four boys, the Israeli military admitted that it had conducted the strike and called it, dismissively, “a tragic outcome,” claiming that it mistook the children for Hamas militants. International outrage followed and Israel launched its own internal investigation into the killings, which was completed almost a year later in June 2015.
The resulting report essentially exonerated Israel from any responsibility: “The incident took place in an area that had long been known as a compound belonging to Hamas’s Naval Police and Naval Force (including naval commandos), and which was utilised exclusively by militants.” This compound, said the statement, “spans the length of the breakwater of the Gaza City seashore, closed off by a fence and clearly separated from the beach serving the civilian population.”
This was what the Israel military claimed, even though the hut around which the children were playing was in the clear sight of nearby hotels where international journalists were staying. All of them reported that they saw no militants in that area at the time of the strike.
The Israeli military statement continued, saying that it had “carried out a number of attacks on the compound in the days prior to the incident” and, in one attack the day before, “a container located inside the compound, which was used to store military supplies, was attacked.”
This, again, contradicts the accounts of many of the journalists who were there. The compound in question, they confirmed, was easily accessible to both fishermen and local Palestinians who visit the beach to swim and relax, therefore making it a poor location for Hamas to store its military supplies.
Furthermore, the container which the Israeli report described was found to have contained no military equipment when investigated.
In August 2018, it was revealed by The Intercept that a secret report by the Israeli military police said that the strikes were conducted without authorisation.
According to the leaked report, the Israeli drone operators confessed that they contacted their superiors after they killed the first child, seeking authorisation for the second strike and clarification on what to do about the fleeing children who they allegedly mistook for militants. The report states, however, that “less than a minute later, the drone operators decided to launch a second missile, killing three more children, despite never getting an answer to their question.”
The killing of the Bakr boys was, as far as many people are concerned, evidence that Israel was targeting civilians and civilian areas indiscriminately in the numerous air attacks that it has conducted on the Gaza Strip. It symbolised the killing of innocents by the Israeli military, children being regarded as blameless and easily distinguishable from Hamas fighters, and not connected at all to the politics in the name of which civilians are all too often crushed.
Barely three years later, Israel detained the Bakr family fishermen, while at least 1,500 homes destroyed in that same 2014 offensive still need to be rebuilt.
Six years later, justice for the Bakr family has yet to be seen. Israel’s “investigation” of its own war crime has made sure of that.
READ: Israel regrets withdrawing from Gaza
Israel is reportedly preparing a secret list of military and intelligence officials who might be vulnerable to arrest abroad if the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague opens an investigation into Israeli war crimes in the occupied Palestinian territories.
According to Haaretz website, this list now includes between 200 and 300 officials, some of whom have not been informed.
The ICC is expected to rule soon on whether to approve the request by ICC Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda to investigate Israel over suspicions of war crimes in the occupied Palestinian territories beginning in 2014, the year of when Israel launched an all-out war on Gaza.
Experts in international law believe that officials and decision-makers involved in incidents that began with the war in Gaza that summer would be the first to face the court’s scrutiny.
They include Israeli premier Benjamin Netanyahu, former war ministers Moshe Ya’alon, Avigdor Lieberman and Naftali Bennett, former army chiefs of staff Benny Gantz and Gadi Eisenkot, current chief of staff Aviv Kochavi, and the former and current heads of the Shin Bet security service, Yoram Cohen and Nadav Argaman.
But the length of the list shows that it includes people in much more junior positions, including lower-ranking military officers and perhaps even officials involved in issuing various types of permits to settlements and settlement outposts, since the issue of Jewish settlement in the occupied Palestinian territories is also within the scope of the requested investigation.
According to Haaretz website, this list now includes between 200 and 300 officials, some of whom have not been informed.
The ICC is expected to rule soon on whether to approve the request by ICC Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda to investigate Israel over suspicions of war crimes in the occupied Palestinian territories beginning in 2014, the year of when Israel launched an all-out war on Gaza.
Experts in international law believe that officials and decision-makers involved in incidents that began with the war in Gaza that summer would be the first to face the court’s scrutiny.
They include Israeli premier Benjamin Netanyahu, former war ministers Moshe Ya’alon, Avigdor Lieberman and Naftali Bennett, former army chiefs of staff Benny Gantz and Gadi Eisenkot, current chief of staff Aviv Kochavi, and the former and current heads of the Shin Bet security service, Yoram Cohen and Nadav Argaman.
But the length of the list shows that it includes people in much more junior positions, including lower-ranking military officers and perhaps even officials involved in issuing various types of permits to settlements and settlement outposts, since the issue of Jewish settlement in the occupied Palestinian territories is also within the scope of the requested investigation.
8 july 2020
In the summer of 2014, Al Mezan and LPHR worked together to examine egregious acts of horror against civilians in Gaza, trapped in a closed-off territory while under military bombardment run by Israel’s political and military leadership; its emblematic feature being that dozens of entire families were killed and maimed by targeted military attacks against family homes for the duration of the military offensive between 7 July and 26 August.
For six years, Al Mezan and LPHR have worked relentlessly on behalf of victims, survivors and their families to pursue accountability for clearly apparent serious violations of international criminal, humanitarian and human rights law; including engagement at the international level with the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court and the UN Independent Commission of Inquiry into the 2014 Gaza Conflict.
Reflecting the empirical evidence, Al Mezan and LPHR have voiced grave concerns about the systemic impunity deeply embedded within Israel’s military investigation process, despite which Al Mezan engages with in good faith to seek legal redress, accountability and justice for victims, survivors and their families.
However, the appalling and clearly foreseeable pattern of impunity repeats itself year after year. No criminal charges, prosecutions, or convictions for clearly apparent serious violations against civilians in Gaza during the 2014 military bombardment. No genuine investigations, no legal accountability, no justice for victims, survivors and their families. Gross injustice and total systemic impunity prevailing. Six years on it is overwhelmingly clear to our organisations that Israel is unwilling to provide genuine investigations for these grave cases.
For six years, the authoritative words of the UN independent Commission of Inquiry into the 2014 Gaza Conflict have remained gravely extant: “The commission is concerned that impunity prevails across the board for violations of international humanitarian and human rights law allegedly committed by Israeli forces, whether it be in the context of active hostilities in Gaza or killings, torture, and ill-treatment in the West Bank.” [bolded for emphasis by Al Mezan and LPHR]
The empirical record is plainly and strikingly clear: Israel is unwilling to hold its political and military leadership to account. The output of the fundamentally flawed investigation system unquestionably activates the mandate of the ICC. It is accordingly and necessarily incumbent on the ICC Prosecutor to meet the hope and imperative of victims, survivors and their families, and bring an end to the devastating cycle of systemic impunity.
-The recurrent serious violations that have egregiously harmed thousands of civilians in Gaza over the years without distinction—men and women, boys and girls, the elderly and people with disabilities—must be met with an effective accountability deterrent.
Against this devastating context, Al Mezan and LPHR strongly welcome the 20 December 2019 announcement by ICC Prosecutor, Fatou Bensouda, that she is ready to open a criminal investigation into the situation in Palestine. We view it as a seminal step towards achieving legal accountability and justice for the many victims, survivors and their families of alleged serious international crimes perpetrated by Israeli forces and their military and political leadership.
Our organisations did also note the important caveat that the Prosecutor’s significant decision to open an investigation has been made without yet making a crucial determination on the genuineness and scope of Israel’s investigative processes vis-a-vis the 2014 hostilities in Gaza.
On this sixth anniversary, and on behalf of the thousands of victims, survivors and their families, Al Mezan and LPHR wish to make a respectful, solemn and grave appeal to the ICC Prosecutor to make the objectively necessary determination that Israel has been demonstrably unwilling to provide genuine investigations, and accordingly the Office of the Prosecutor will undertake the responsibility, pursuant to the fundamental objectives of the Rome Statute, to investigate the 2014 attacks on Gaza.
Al Mezan Centre for Human Rights (Al Mezan) is a Palestinian non-governmental human rights organization that works for the protection and promotion of Palestinian human rights and the rule of law in Gaza as part of occupied Palestine.
Lawyers for Palestinian Human Rights (LPHR) is a lawyer-based charity in the UK that works on projects to protect and promote Palestinian human rights. LPHR’s mission is to use our expertise to meaningfully contribute towards transforming the critical human rights situation impacting Palestinians.
For more on Al Mezan’s and LPHR’s work in this area, please see the following:
For six years, Al Mezan and LPHR have worked relentlessly on behalf of victims, survivors and their families to pursue accountability for clearly apparent serious violations of international criminal, humanitarian and human rights law; including engagement at the international level with the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court and the UN Independent Commission of Inquiry into the 2014 Gaza Conflict.
Reflecting the empirical evidence, Al Mezan and LPHR have voiced grave concerns about the systemic impunity deeply embedded within Israel’s military investigation process, despite which Al Mezan engages with in good faith to seek legal redress, accountability and justice for victims, survivors and their families.
However, the appalling and clearly foreseeable pattern of impunity repeats itself year after year. No criminal charges, prosecutions, or convictions for clearly apparent serious violations against civilians in Gaza during the 2014 military bombardment. No genuine investigations, no legal accountability, no justice for victims, survivors and their families. Gross injustice and total systemic impunity prevailing. Six years on it is overwhelmingly clear to our organisations that Israel is unwilling to provide genuine investigations for these grave cases.
For six years, the authoritative words of the UN independent Commission of Inquiry into the 2014 Gaza Conflict have remained gravely extant: “The commission is concerned that impunity prevails across the board for violations of international humanitarian and human rights law allegedly committed by Israeli forces, whether it be in the context of active hostilities in Gaza or killings, torture, and ill-treatment in the West Bank.” [bolded for emphasis by Al Mezan and LPHR]
The empirical record is plainly and strikingly clear: Israel is unwilling to hold its political and military leadership to account. The output of the fundamentally flawed investigation system unquestionably activates the mandate of the ICC. It is accordingly and necessarily incumbent on the ICC Prosecutor to meet the hope and imperative of victims, survivors and their families, and bring an end to the devastating cycle of systemic impunity.
-The recurrent serious violations that have egregiously harmed thousands of civilians in Gaza over the years without distinction—men and women, boys and girls, the elderly and people with disabilities—must be met with an effective accountability deterrent.
Against this devastating context, Al Mezan and LPHR strongly welcome the 20 December 2019 announcement by ICC Prosecutor, Fatou Bensouda, that she is ready to open a criminal investigation into the situation in Palestine. We view it as a seminal step towards achieving legal accountability and justice for the many victims, survivors and their families of alleged serious international crimes perpetrated by Israeli forces and their military and political leadership.
Our organisations did also note the important caveat that the Prosecutor’s significant decision to open an investigation has been made without yet making a crucial determination on the genuineness and scope of Israel’s investigative processes vis-a-vis the 2014 hostilities in Gaza.
On this sixth anniversary, and on behalf of the thousands of victims, survivors and their families, Al Mezan and LPHR wish to make a respectful, solemn and grave appeal to the ICC Prosecutor to make the objectively necessary determination that Israel has been demonstrably unwilling to provide genuine investigations, and accordingly the Office of the Prosecutor will undertake the responsibility, pursuant to the fundamental objectives of the Rome Statute, to investigate the 2014 attacks on Gaza.
Al Mezan Centre for Human Rights (Al Mezan) is a Palestinian non-governmental human rights organization that works for the protection and promotion of Palestinian human rights and the rule of law in Gaza as part of occupied Palestine.
Lawyers for Palestinian Human Rights (LPHR) is a lawyer-based charity in the UK that works on projects to protect and promote Palestinian human rights. LPHR’s mission is to use our expertise to meaningfully contribute towards transforming the critical human rights situation impacting Palestinians.
For more on Al Mezan’s and LPHR’s work in this area, please see the following:
- LPHR and Al Mezan Complaint Submission [pdf] made to the United Nations Commission of Inquiry on the 2014 Gaza Conflict concerning large-scale destruction and damage to family houses in the Gaza Strip, with associated profound loss of life and injury to Palestinian residents, during Israel’s military operation between 7 July 2014 and 26 August 2014 (published September 2014)
- LPHR, Al Mezan and Medical Aid for Palestinians Complaint Submission [pdf] to the United Nations Commission of Inquiry on the 2014 Gaza Conflict concerning destruction and damage to medical infrastructure, and loss of life and injury to civilians and medical personnel, in Gaza, during Israel’s military operation between 7 July 2014 and 26 August 2014 (published February 2015)
- LPHR, Al Mezan and Medical Aid for Palestinians Joint Report: [pdf]
- No More Impunity: Gaza’s Health Sector Under Attack (published June 2015)
- Al Mezan report: [pdf] No Reparations in Israel for Palestinians: How Israel’s Amendment No. 8 Leaves no Room for Recourse (published December 2015)
- LPHR and Al Mezan joint update [pdf] – including survey of families on hope for justice – to its September 2014 report to the UN Commission of Inquiry on large-scale destruction and damage to family houses in the Gaza Strip, with associated profound loss of life and injury to Palestinian residents, during Israel’s military operation between 7 July 2014 and 26 August 2014 (published December 2016)
- Al Mezan and Adalah – The Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel Joint Report: [pdf] Gaza 3 Years On: Impunity over Accountability – Israel’s unwillingness to investigate violations of international law in the Gaza Strip (published August 2017)
- LPHR and Al Mezan Joint Report: [pdf] Justice Denied: Gaza human shield survivors and the systemic failure of Israel’s military investigation system to provide accountability (published September 2018)
- LPHR Report: [pdf] Eleven key points relevant to the complementarity assessment being undertaken by the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court on the grave issue of targeted airstrikes against family homes in Gaza (published April 2019)
- LPHR Statement: [pdf] A seminal step towards legal accountability and justice for victims, survivors and their families: ICC Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda’s decision that she is ready to open an investigation into the situation in Palestine (published December 2019)
- LPHR, Al Mezan and Medical Aid for Palestinians Joint Report: [pdf] Chronic Impunity: Gaza’s Health Sector Under Repeated Attack (published March 2020)
12 jan 2020
Members of the Diplomatic-Security Cabinet are said to be “profoundly concerned” that the International Criminal Court (ICC) may issue secret arrest warrants for Israeli officials it considers suspects, as it will launch a war crimes investigation against Israel within the next 90 days.
Last month, ICC Chief Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda announced that her office “has concluded with the determination that all the statutory criteria under the Rome statute for the opening of an investigation have been met.”
As Israel is not a signatory to the Rome Statute that lends the ICC its power, Israelis claim Bensouda has no jurisdiction over the matter.
Meanwhile, the Palestinian Authority joined the Rome Statute in 2015.
IF the ICC does issue such warrants, high-ranking Israeli officials and army officers may be arrested upon traveling abroad and extradited to The HagueInternational Criminal Court Prepares to Try Israelis over War Crimes, PNN reports.
Last month, ICC Chief Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda announced that her office “has concluded with the determination that all the statutory criteria under the Rome statute for the opening of an investigation have been met.”
As Israel is not a signatory to the Rome Statute that lends the ICC its power, Israelis claim Bensouda has no jurisdiction over the matter.
Meanwhile, the Palestinian Authority joined the Rome Statute in 2015.
IF the ICC does issue such warrants, high-ranking Israeli officials and army officers may be arrested upon traveling abroad and extradited to The HagueInternational Criminal Court Prepares to Try Israelis over War Crimes, PNN reports.
11 jan 2020
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Shawan Jabarin of the Al-Haq human rights organization discusses the International Criminal Court decision to prepare a lawsuit against the state of Israel regarding war crimes committed against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip.
Israeli authorities are already panicking. |
