“The army is not serious, it wants to use the excuse (of tunnels) to invade, destroy and create a buffer zone,” Roth said.

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM, October 18 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) - Israel's massive onslaught in the Gaza Strip came under a double attack Monday, October 18, from a leading rights group and a UN agency, with both accusing the Jewish state of violating international law.

A report by Human Rights Watch said the destruction of thousands of homes in southern Gaza along the border with Egypt, could not be justified on military grounds.

Coinciding with the damning report, the head of the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA), Peter Hansen, said the recent offensive in northern Gaza had left up to 700 people homeless, reported Agence France-Presse (AFP).

Violating International Law

The Human Rights Watch report, entitled: “Razing Rafah -- Mass Home Demolitions in the Gaza Strip”, said: "The pattern of destruction strongly suggests that Israeli forces demolished homes wholesale, regardless of whether they posed a specific threat, in violation of international law.”

The New York-based organization's executive director Kenneth Roth questioned Israel's insistence that the demolition of more than 2,500 houses over the past four years was necessary to destroy underground tunnels used by Palestinian militants to smuggle weapons into Gaza from Egypt.

Rather, he said the demolitions were about “creating a buffer zone, slice by slice” to facilitate long-term control over the Gaza Strip.

“The (Israeli) army is not serious, it wants to use the excuse (of tunnels) to invade, destroy and create a buffer zone,” he told reporters at the launch of the report in occupied Jerusalem.

“Israel's conduct in southern Gaza stems from the assumption that every Palestinian is suicide bomber and every home a base for attack."

Roth also warned that such a mindset was incompatible with international humanitarian law under which an occupying power must distinguish between civilians and combatants, and protect civilians.

“The goal is also to punish civilians for the conduct of militants. It is wrong to attack civilians and civilian property to achieve military objectives and try to influence militants,” he said.

There was no immediate Israeli response to the Human Rights Watch report.

Thousands Left Homeless

“We will have extremely serious task in trying to provide for those people, who have lost everything,” Hansen said.

The accusations of international law violations were echoed by Hansen as he toured the Jabaliya refugee camp in northern Gaza, the main focus of the recently ended Operation Days of Penitence which left around 130 Palestinians dead in less than three weeks.

“Most of what we have seen here in Jabaliya over the last two weeks is a gross violation of international and humanitarian law,” he said.

Hansen told reporters that at least 90 houses had been destroyed but added the figure was “a low estimate but will increase, I am sure, as we get more and more careful surveys”.

“That means that hundreds of people -- I believe 600 to 700 -- will be added to the rows of homeless which is already 20,000 people in Gaza,” he said.

“We will have extremely serious task in trying to provide for those people, who have lost everything, to get them going again with their lives, as difficult as it will be for them.”

Hansen was involved in a furious row with Israeli authorities during the offensive, when they claimed that UNRWA had allowed one of its ambulances to be used by Palestinian resistance fighters to transport makeshift missiles used in attacks on southern Israel.

Israel later retracted their allegations but refused to apologize to UNRWA.

Hansen had earlier accused the Israeli army of establishing firing positions in UN schools in Gaza while pupils were still in class. That allegation was never formally denied.

A 10-year-old Palestinian schoolgirl died Wednesday, October 13, of her wounds after Israeli occupation troops shot her in the chest while sitting inside a United Nations school in a Gaza refugee camp.