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Deadly Darts Used In Gaza Vineyard Attack: Report
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Mohammad al-Hajeen was a victim of the deadly dart
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GAZA
CITY, August 30 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) – The Israeli army
regularly use “flechettes that are designed to kill and maim” a
U.K. newspaper reported Friday.
The
Independent said that army
used these “deadly darts” in the attack on the vineyard which
killed a Palestinian family on Thursday.
The
flechette, stood out on the X-ray of 16-year-old Salah al-Hajeen, in
perfect silhouette, the paper said. “A missile in miniature embedded
in the flesh about half-way up the right side of his rib cage. One and
a half inches higher up, just below the armpit, there was a second
dart, pointing in a different direction. A third had torn its way into
his stomach,” it added.
There
were nearly 3,000 of these inch-long arrows packed in the Israeli
shell that was thrown on the vineyard, reported the Independent.
Four
members of the family were killed when Israeli shelling blasted their
small house in the vineyards - Rueida al-Hajeen, 55, her sons Ashraf,
22, and Nuhad, 17, as well as her nephew, Mohammad, 17, according to
Palestinian medics, reported Agence France-Presse (AFP).
Like
many small farmers in the narrow, overcrowded coastal strip, the
Hajeen family spent the night picking grapes in their field in the
Sheikh Ajlin neighborhood of southern Gaza City, an area just a few
hundred meters (yards) from the heavily guarded Jewish settlement of
Netzarim.
They
worked at night "to be able to sell them before sunrise"
said neighbor Aahed Awad.
Awad
was in his house near the vineyard when "we were surprised by
heavy firing and tanks shells penetrating hundreds of meters into the
neighborhood," he told AFP.
Rueida
was killed on the spot with Mohammed when a shell smashed into the
small house, a relative said.
Ashraf
and Nuhad were seriously hurt and slowly bled to death as ambulances
were unable to reach the scene, Palestinian officials said.
Five
more of Rueida's sons were injured, one of them seriously, hospital
officials said.
Initially,
the Independent reporters were not told about the flechettes,
but they were curious to know if the darts they saw at the scene
buried in fig trees had also hit people and so they were shown the
X-ray images of al-Hajeen.
“The
Israeli armed forces, whose Chief-of-Staff was trained in Britain and
which is funded and equipped in large part by the United States,”
use an “Israeli-manufactured 120mm shell, fired from a tank, which
can be set to explode in the air at a specified distance and fires out
its payload of darts in all directions,” the Independent said
adding that it has been the subject of complaints by human rights
groups and foreign diplomats, including Britain's.
However,
the bomb has not been banned under international conventions, the
paper added.
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The Israeli common usage of the flechettes has been slammed by human rights organizations worldwide |
In
a report published by Amnesty international on May 28, the
organization said that till that date Israeli security forces killed
more than 460 Palestinians, including 79 children and that the vast
majority were killed unlawfully, when the lives of others were not in
imminent danger, during demonstrations, during shelling of residential
areas and at checkpoints.
Amnesty
said that the Israeli army used high-velocity ammunition and
rubber-coated metal bullets that killed and wounded demonstrators and
that ammunition used against Palestinians included mortars, grenade
launchers and artillery shells, including shells containing flechettes
(5cm-long steel darts).
In
June 2001, the organization said, two Bedouin women and a child were
killed in June in the Gaza Strip when an Israeli tank shelled their
tent with a 120mm shell filled with up to 2,000 flechettes.
Human
Rights Watch (HRW) said that the Israeli army acknowledged that it used flechette munitions
in that attack and that said that it urged Israel to expand the
investigation to include an examination of the use of such
anti-personnel weapons against the Palestinians.
In
a statement published by HRW on June 16, the organization called for a
public commitment by the Israeli government that such weapons will not
be used in the future in or around populated areas.
"Anti-personnel
weapons that have a large 'kill radius' must never be used in areas
where civilians live," said Hanny Megally, executive director of
the Middle East and North Africa division of Human Rights Watch.
"While flechette ammunition is not banned under international
law, its use in such circumstances is highly questionable since it
raises risk of civilian casualties to a threshold that is intolerable
under international law."
A
1996 study by Human Rights Watch, Civilian Pawns: Laws of War
Violations and the Use of Weapons on the Israel-Lebanon Border,
investigated the Israeli army’s use of U.S.-supplied tank-fired
flechette munitions in southern Lebanon.
The
organization said that the shells used in southern Lebanon contained
ten to fourteen thousand 1.5 inch steel darts that, when released from
the canister, spread out in an arc that had a maximum width of about
ninety-four yards.
“The
flechettes are designed to kill and maim armed men on the ground. You
only have to examine their effect on a tree – they can scythe clean
through an inch-thick branch – to appreciate their deadliness. But
late on Wednesday night – not for the first time in this 23-month
conflict – they were used by Israel against Palestinian civilians to
fatal and indiscriminate effect,” the Independent said.
The
head of the Palestinian general security forces in the Gaza Strip,
General Abdel Razaq al-Majaida, said Israel bore "full
responsibility for the consequences which could arise from this
massacre."
The
Islamic resistance group Hamas already vowed to step up attacks in
response to the deaths.
Palestinians
security services said the tank shells destroyed the house and damaged
neighboring homes.
Palestinian
President Yasser Arafat said the shelling was aimed at thwarting
international efforts to find a peaceful solution to the crisis.
"This crime shows the true intentions of
whoever gave the instructions to carry it out," he added.
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