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Israel Showed "Utter Disregard" for Human Life: Amnesty
WASHINGTON, Aug 2 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - The London-based human rights group Amnesty International (AI) issued a statement Wednesday condemning Israel for Tuesday's attack in Nablus that killed eight Palestinians, including two children and two journalists, and injured 15 others.
"By killing eight Palestinians in Nablus, Israel showed once again an utter disregard for human life in the Occupied Territories," an AI statement said.
The building in which the eight were killed was the Palestinian Center for Information, and the two journalists, Mohamed el-Bishawi and 'Uthman Qatanan, were reportedly interviewing the Hamas leader Jamal Mansour, who was one of the two targets of the assassination attempt.
Bishawi was a contributing correspondent for IslamOnline's Arabic site.
The two children, six-year old Ashraf Khader and nine-year-old Bilal Khader, were playing outside the building while their mother, who was wounded in the attack, was inside visiting their uncle who worked as a physiotherapist in a clinic in the building.
Among those critically injured was human rights defender Ahmad Abu Shallal, now in intensive care, an AI press release said. Shallal, who works for the Washington-based International Solidarity organization, champions the causes of political detainees on both sides of the Middle East conflict, and was apparently visiting the building on journalistic research, the press release said.
"The Israeli authorities must have known and totally disregarded the fact that the media center targeted was likely to be frequented by journalists and others," AI said in its statement.
"In these state assassinations the Israeli authorities offer no proof of guilt, no right to defense. Extrajudicial executions are absolutely prohibited by international law."
U.N. Human Rights Commissioner Mary Robinson on Wednesday condemned the attack, saying she was deeply dismayed by the action.
"This daily violation of the right to life must stop," she said in a statement, expressing "deep dismay" over the Israeli helicopter attack in Nablus.
"The violence will not lead to a resolution of the conflict, but it does cause more suffering and makes the entire situation even more dangerous," she said.
AI repeated its calls for international observers to monitor the region, calls which Palestinians have welcomed in the hopes that such observers would discourage human rights abuses such as assassinations, harassment of civilians and lethal force used against stonethrowing rioters.
Although the international community - including the EU and the U.S. - has supported the idea of international monitors, Israel has stood firmly against such a measure, only recently relenting enough to agree to have CIA agents serve as observers.
Each new incident of violence often sparks a spate of blame tossing, in which each side censures the other for the escalation. AI argued that the presence of international observers could alleviate the cycle of violence, saying, "Independent monitors with military expertise are vital to rule on the claims and counterclaims and clarify the circumstances of each killing."
"The international community must no longer accept any excuses or any delay in sending independent observers with a human rights mandate and sufficient expertise, resources and powers to monitor, investigate and make public reports," AI said.
"Whatever human rights violations are committed by a government, nothing can justify attacks targeting civilians. Nor can any killings by opposition groups justify this shocking disregard for basic human rights principles by a government."
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