'They are telling people, ‘You can go to Gaza City,' where I live. But where I live it’s not safe.'
“We have a moral obligation to avoid civilian casualties. We also have a moral obligation to defend our people,” an IDF chief of staff said according to the forces’ Twitter account. “There are no militaries like ours. There are no militaries that drop leaflets and telephone civilians before a strike.”'There are no militaries like ours. There are no militaries that drop leaflets and telephone civilians before a strike,'
Many days ago, we dropped this Arabic flyer warning residents of Shuja'iya to evacuate. Read the English translation. — IDF (@IDFSpokesperson)July 20, 2014
Yet Suliman said that these warnings are disingenuous, and in Gaza — a cramped home to nearly 2 million people — there’s a cruel irony in this advice to evacuate: there’s hardly anywhere safe to go.Days ago, we warned civilians in Shuja'iya to evacuate. Hamas ordered them to stay. Hamas put them in the line of fire.
— IDF (@IDFSpokesperson)July 20, 2014
“This is a tactic to tell the world that the IDF cares about civilian lives so that when they kill civilians they can say, ‘We warned people, they didn’t leave, Hamas is using them as shields.’ This is completely ridiculous,” Suliman said. “They are saying, ‘We want the residents of the northern Gaza districts to leave their houses,’ but 250,000 people live in the northern Gaza districts. They are telling a quarter of a million people to leave their houses.”“That’s laughable. Where are they going to go?”A spokesperson for the IDF told VICE News that it specifies which areas of Gaza are considered safe in its leaflets, and said that the force "takes great effort not to harm the civilian population in Gaza, despite all of Hamas' attempts to place its citizens directly in the line of Israeli fire.""The IDF uses various methods to warn residents of Gaza of impending attacks and to encourage civilians to leave areas where attacks may occur. Phone calls and texts messages are sent in Arabic, explaining to civilians that attacks might occur in their areas; leaflets are also dropped in neighborhoods, asking residents to evacuate," she said, adding that warnings are sent out "with enough time for them to be relevant.'They are telling a quarter of a million people to leave their houses.'
Hamas told Palestinian civilians to ignore our warnings. Hamas encouraged them to be human shields. Watch: — IDF (@IDFSpokesperson)July 20, 2014
Last week, UN officials found about 20 rockets hidden in one the agency’s vacant schools in Gaza. The IDF has also accused Hamas of firing rockets from playgrounds, mosques, and cemeteries — turning civilian areas into military targets.“This incident, which is the first of its kind in Gaza, endangered civilians including staff and put at risk UNRWA’s vital mission to assist and protect Palestine refugees in Gaza,” the agency said in a statement condemning those responsible for placing the rockets on the school premises.We fired a warning shot at this target in Gaza. In response, these civilians ran to the roof and brought their kids. — IDF (@IDFSpokesperson)July 20, 2014
Be wary of Israels
— Yousef Munayyer (@YousefMunayyer)July 21, 2014
“Israel considers any perceived link to Hamas justification for attack, Hamas considers any place in Israel a target,” Israeli human rights watchdog B’tselem said in a statement today. “One party fires at civilians, more often than not missing the target thanks to the Iron Dome defense system. The other party fires at densely populated civilian areas, with deadly results on a shocking scale.”In one case documented by the group, 25 members of a single family — including 20 children as young as four months and three pregnant women — were killed when their house was bombed on Sunday.The target of that attack, in the Bani Suheila neighborhood northeast of Khan Yunis, was a member of Hamas’ military wing, who was visiting a member of the family and was also killed in the strike.Worth noting that Amnesty DID find evidence of human shields being used in its Cast Lead report…..by Israel — Yousef Munayyer (@YousefMunayyer)July 21, 2014
In this particular case, no warning was issued and no warning missile was fired prior to the attack, B’tselem’s initial investigation found. But even prior notice, the group said, doesn’t clear the IDF of responsibility."In the absence of a protected area for residents that provides shelter and an answer to their humanitarian needs, military commanders can not claim that they have taken sufficient precautions to avoid causing injury," B’tselem and nine other rights groups wrote in a joint letter to Israel’s attorney general.“Sending alerts or providing warnings to residents does not transform them, or their homes, into legitimate military targets, and does not exempt the army from its duty to avoid executing indiscriminate attacks in the area,” the group also said in a statement.'Sending alerts or providing warnings to residents does not transform them, or their homes, into legitimate military targets.'
Gaza residents seeking shelter have been scrambling to find refuge with families or in the UNRWA school shelters. Yet some are scared to go there as well. “UN shelters are safer but that doesn’t mean they are not at risk of being hit or targeted,” Suliman said, recalling UN shelters bombed during previous operations.And with 100,000 people already in place, UN shelters are also extremely crammed and strapped for resources.'With 100,000 people already in place, UN shelters are also extremely crammed.'