srael Guilty of War Crimes in Gaza: UN

He said that “Israel must have known” about the wedding party in the Gaza Strip close to the Interior Ministry when it launched missiles at the building on Friday.

A badly injured Palestinian child is carried to hospital after a deadly Israeli airstrike in Gaza City on Friday. John Dugard, UN special rapporteur on human rights, called it a war crime. (AP)

GENEVA, 20 January 2008 — Israel’s targeting of a Hamas government office which caused serious casualties at a nearby wedding party was a “war crime” and those responsible should be punished, a United Nations official said yesterday.

John Dugard, UN special rapporteur on the human rights situation in the occupied territories, slammed the killing of Palestinians in other attacks and the closing of border crossings.

“Those responsible for such cowardly action are guilty of serious war crimes and should be prosecuted and punished for their crimes,” Dugard said.

“Recent action violates the strict prohibition on collective punishment contained in the Fourth Geneva Convention,” said Dugard in the statement put out by the UN Human Rights Commission. “

It violates one of the basic principles of international humanitarian law that military action must distinguish between military and civilian targets.”

The massive airstrike destroyed the ministry building, sending a tide of shrapnel crashing against adjacent apartment buildings and killing a 47-year-old woman. More