JERUSALEM:A Human Rights Watch investigation published on Thursday said an Israeli attack on a Gaza building in October had no apparent militant target, but killed 106 civilians, including 54 children, making it an “apparent war crime.”
International law prohibits attacks on military targets that will likely cause disproportionate harm to civilians.
The Oct. 31 attack was one of the deadliest since the start of the war nearly six months ago.
Human Rights Watch says four separate strikes collapsed the Engineer’s Building in central Gaza, which was housing some 350 people, around a third of whom had fled their homes elsewhere in the territory.
Those killed included children playing soccer outside and residents charging phones in the first-floor grocery store, it said.
Thirty-four women, 18 men and 54 children were killed in the strike, according to the group, which says it corroborated its list of the dead with Airwars, a London-based conflict monitor.
The dead came from 22 families. One extended family, the Abu Said family, lost 23 relatives in the strike, it said.
Journalists reported on four siblings who had been killed in the strike in October, including 18-month-old twin boys.
“They had no time here,” Sami Abu Sultan, their uncle, said a day after the building was destroyed. “It was God’s will.”
While putting together the report, Human Rights Watch says it interviewed 16 people, including relatives of those killed in the attack, and analyzed satellite imagery, 35 photographs and 45 videos of the aftermath.
It was unable to visit the site because Israel heavily restricts access to Gaza.
Witnesses told the rights group there was no warning ahead of the attack.
Human Rights Watch says Israeli authorities have not published any information about the purported target and did not respond to its requests for information.
The Israeli military did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Thursday.
Israel has faced mounting international criticism over its wartime conduct after its strikes killed seven aid workers earlier this week.
Its bombardment of the strip is one of the most intense aerial campaigns of the 21st century.
Hamas official Osama Hamdan said there has been no progress in Gaza ceasefire talks despite the Palestinian group showing flexibility.
Hamdan said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was placing obstacles hindering both parties from reaching an agreement, and that he is “not interested” in releasing Israeli hostages.
“The occupation government is still evading, and negotiations are stuck in a vicious circle,” Hamdan said at a press conference held in Beirut.
Egyptian and Qatari efforts, backed by the US, have so far failed to achieve a ceasefire.
While Hamas wants any ceasefire agreement to secure an end to the Israeli military offensive, Israel prefers a prisoners-for-hostage release deal, refusing to commit to ending its military campaign.
The Israeli military released 101 Palestinians who had been detained by forces during the ground offensive in the past weeks and months. The detainees, many of whom complained of ill-treatment in Israeli jails, were freed through the Israeli Kerem Shalom crossing into the southern Gaza Strip.
The Israeli military halted leave for all combat units on Thursday amid concerns of a possible escalation in violence after the killing of Iranian generals in Damascus this week drew threats of retaliation.
“In accordance with the situational assessment, it has been decided that leave will be temporarily paused for all IDF (Israel Defense Forces) combat units,” the military said in a statement.
“The IDF is at war and the deployment of forces is under continuous assessment according to requirements,” it said.
On Wednesday, the military said it had drafted reservists to boost aerial defenses. Journalists and Tel Aviv residents said that GPS services had been disrupted, an apparent measure meant to ward off guided missiles.
Iran has vowed revenge for the killing of two of its generals along with five military advisers in an airstrike on an Iranian diplomatic compound in the Syrian capital Damascus on Monday.
Israel has been pressing its war on Hamas for six months.
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