III. Drone-launched Attacks on Civilians in Gaza

Human Rights Watch investigated the following six drone attacks that killed and wounded civilians: two of them on urban streets, one on a UN-run school, and three on apartment rooftops in residential neighborhoods.

Gaza Technical College, Gaza City

Around 1:30 p.m. on December 27, 2008, the first day of the IDF offensive, an IDF drone launched a missile at a group of young men and women standing across the street from the UNRWA-sponsored Gaza Technical College in downtown Gaza City [GPS 31.51162/034.44336] killing 12. Nine of the dead were college students, two of them young women; all were waiting for a UN bus to take them to their homes in Rafah and Khan Yunis in the southern Gaza strip. The three other civilians killed were bystanders. The missile struck 25 meters from UNRWA's Gaza headquarters, in the Rimal neighborhood of central Gaza City, which is frequented by UN staff and international aid workers.

According to nine witnesses interviewed by Human Rights Watch, including three international UN staff, no Palestinian fighters were active on the street or in the immediate area just prior to or at the time of the attack. Fighters from Hamas and the other Palestinian factions were rarely seen in the Rimal neighborhood where the attack took place, witnesses as well as Palestinian journalists and human rights activists based in Gaza said. This was one of the first airstrikes of Operation Cast Lead, and the street was crowded at the time of the attack as civilians went about their normal business.

To Human Rights Watch's knowledge, Israel has not commented publicly on the intended target of the strike. The IDF has also not responded to Human Rights Watch's questions about the attack (see Appendix).

Three eyewitnesses provided Human Rights Watch detailed accounts. The owner of a small grocery store directly in front of the UN bus stop and about three meters from the blast, Adib Munthir al-Rayyis, 27, was wounded in the attack. He told Human Rights Watch during an interview alone in his shop that at the time of the blast he had just entered the store from the normally busy street, closed the door behind him, and was walking to the counter when he heard and felt an explosion outside the door. He said,

I heard drones outside but didn't think anything about it. I went into my store and was thrown to the ground by an explosion. It was so sudden. I rushed outside and saw many bodies. I didn't know I was hurt until someone said I was bleeding-I had many small bloody holes in me. I went to Shifa [hospital] and the doctors say I am fine but I need surgery to remove the pieces still in me.[18]

Al-Rayyis showed Human Rights Watch an x-ray of his leg, with tiny black squares where the cubic tungsten fragments from the missile had lodged near the bone. He also has fragments embedded in his chest and torso, he said.

On January 21 Human Rights Watch inspected the impact crater in the asphalt of the missile blast, about 120 centimeters wide and 80 centimeters deep, in front of al-Rayyis's grocery store and across from the UNRWA headquarters. Cubic fragments, apparently from the Spike missile, were embedded in some of the dozens of tiny square holes in the shop door, a lamppost 5 meters away, and the UN compound wall 20 meters away.

Ibrahim Nehru al-Rayyis, age 19, a cousin of Adib Munthir al-Rayyis and a student at al-Azhar University in Gaza City, said he was in a nearby store when the missile struck. Interviewed with his father and a neighbor present in his father's shop five meters from the UN bus stop, he said that he rushed outside after hearing the explosion to find two of his brothers, Hisham, 24, and `Allam, 18, as well as his cousin 'Abdallah, 20, lying on the ground. "We heard a buzzing noise in the air before the explosion," he explained. "When I went out to see what happened, Hisham and `Allam were lying on the ground, blood gushing from their wounds."[19] According to Ibrahim, he rushed his brother 'Allam to Shifa hospital in Gaza City, but `Allam died along the way.

Human Rights Watch also interviewed Ibrahim's father, Nehru al-Rayyis, in his 50s, who was distraught when he said that he went to the scene immediately from a nearby gas station where he was working at the time and took his son Hisham to the hospital, where Hisham also died. "They called me at work to tell me that Hisham was hurt," he said. "I rushed to the scene … There were little holes everywhere in his body."[20]

Nehru al-Rayyis said that at the hospital he learned that `Allam had been brought there as well, but then heard that `Allam had also died and his body had been moved to the hospital morgue. "That's when I stumbled upon my nephew 'Abdallah, by chance," Nehru al-Rayzyis said. He explained,

His ['Abdallah's] body was on the floor outside the morgue. The freezers in the morgue were full and they had something like 150 bodies lying about. I asked for `Allam but was told that his body had already been taken away. So I decided to check on Hisham again. As I climbed the stairs to find Hisham, I passed a body being brought down on a stretcher. When I reached the next floor, someone asked me where I was going. I replied that I was looking for my son Hisham. The person said, "No, you just passed him being brought down the stairs. Look behind you." I turned and ran after the body I had just passed. I saw it was Hisham and said, "May God have mercy on him."

Human Rights Watch altogether interviewed nine witnesses to the attack, three of them in a group and the rest individually. All gave corroborative details of the attack, which lent credibility to their claims. No fighters from Hamas or other Palestinian armed groups were in the area of the Gaza Technical College at the time of the attack, they all said. An UNRWA security guard who witnessed the attack told Human Rights Watch, "There wasn't anybody else around-no police, army, or Hamas."[21]

Although Palestinian armed groups did at times fire locally made rockets into Israel from populated areas in Gaza, none of the witnesses said that rockets had been fired from the Rimal neighborhood of Gaza City at that time, or at any other time during Operation Cast Lead. The three international staff from the UN confirmed that Hamas and other groups did not operate in the area due to the prevalence of international workers and the distance of Rimal from the armistice line, making it unsuitable for Qassam or Grad rocket fire.

The nine students killed in the attack were:

• Ahmad Samih Shehadeh al-Halabi, 19, Rafah
• Baha Samir Abu Zuhri, 19, Rafah
• Adham Hamdi al-'Adani, 19, Deir al-Balah
• Yousef Taysir Sha'ban, 19, Rafah
• Shaban 'Adil Hunaif, 17, Rafah
• Ne'ma Ali al-Mughari, 18, Rafah (female)
• Wafa Marwan al-Dasuqi, 18, Khan Yunis (female)
• Mahmud Majed Abu Tyour, 18, Rafah
• Ali Marwan Abu Rabi', 18, Gaza City

The other three civilians killed were:

• Hisham Nahru Tal'at al-Rayyis, 24
• 'Allam Nahru Tal'at al-Rayyis, 18
• 'Abdallah Munzer Jawdat al-Rayyis, 20

The IDF has provided no public explanation for the attack. The best that could be said for the drone operators is that they considered the students at the bus stop to be fighters, but nothing the students are known to have been doing or carrying supports such a conclusion. Nor does other available evidence suggest that the students were combatants: the street was crowded, students were leaving the Gaza Technical College, and the area was frequented by UN staff and international aid workers. The visual capabilities of the drones should have allowed the operator to distinguish between fighters and civilians.

Samur family metal shop, Jabalya

On December 29, 2008, at approximately 6 p.m., an IDF drone launched a missile that struck a flat-bed truck outside a metal shop in Jabalya.  The shop was located 130 meters south of the Salahaddin and Al-Quds Street intersection [GPS 31.3119/034.2940], also known as Zimmo junction. In a press statement later that day, the IDF claimed that it had "struck a Hamas vehicle loaded with dozens of Grad type missiles." Furthermore,"according to IDF assessments, the missiles were being transferred by Hamas to a hiding location, fearing that the previous location was being targeted by the IDF, or were on route to missile launching sites."[22]

To support its statement, the IDF released video footage of the attack, made available online, probably taken by the drone that launched the missile. It showed a group of at least one dozen men casually loading cylindrical objects crossways onto an open truck immediately before the missile struck.  At least five more men are seen standing around the vehicle.[23]

The IDF video does not show any secondary explosions, which would have indicated the presence of weapons-grade explosives or propellants at the site.  Nor was the destruction at the site consistent with the presence of rockets. Had the truck been carrying Grad rockets with warheads, the truck and adjacent buildings would have been destroyed. Even without warheads, the propellant in the rockets would have destroyed the truck.

Credible doubts about the attack arose on December 31, when the Israeli human rights group B'Tselem released an interview with the owner of the truck, Ahmad Samur, who said that he was transporting oxygen canisters used for welding, and not Grad rockets. According to Samur, his family was trying to move the canisters from the metal workshop he owns to protect them from looters. He denied any connection to Hamas or any other Palestinian armed group. Eight civilians died in the attack, Samur said, including three children and Samur's son 'Imad, age 32. Two others were severely wounded.[24]

B'Tselem took photos of the site that showed burned oxygen canisters on the ground. Visible in the photographs are the telltale cubic fragmentation holes in the truck, which indicate a drone-launched Spike missile. The photographs show no indication of Grads or other rockets at the site.

The IDF continued to defend the attack. "We know there were Grad rockets being loaded onto the truck at the time," an Israeli military spokesman, Capt. Elie Isaacson, told the media.[25]

Research by Human Rights Watch in Gaza after the fighting supports Ahmad Samur's account. Two members of the Samur family, interviewed separately, said that they had gone to the family's metal shop around 4 p.m. to check on the building and equipment after learning that the IDF had bombed the adjacent building, which was the home of a Hamas member. They decided to move the oxygen canisters from the shop, they said, because the rear wall had been destroyed and they feared looters.

"We went there in order to save the equipment because we were afraid that it would be stolen," said Ahmad Samur's nephew, Muhammad Sa'di Ghabayen, 18. Muhammad told Human Rights Watch that he and the other men started to load drills, oxygen canisters, and other equipment from the shop onto the truck. When he returned to the shop for another canister there was an explosion. "I saw horrible scenes. Three canisters were already on the truck and five gallons of benzene," he said. "The oxygen and the benzene burned and also burned the bodies of the dead."[26]

Basil Nabil Ghabayen, 18, told Human Rights Watch that he was in the shop getting equipment to load onto the truck when the missile hit. "I heard the sound of the drones flying overhead but I did not pay much attention to them," he said. "I went out to see what happened, I found my brother and four of my cousins and their friends burnt and lying in a pool of blood and flesh."[27]

The family showed Human Rights Watch some of the oxygen canisters that it said it had moved that day before the Israeli strike. The canisters measured 1.62 meters long-shorter than the average adult man-and 20 cm in diameter. Grad rockets are 2.87 meters long, nearly twice the length.

Jabalya is in the northern Gaza Strip, which has been the origin of many of the Palestinian rocket attacks into Israel. Whatever suspicions that raised, however, the drone's advanced imaging equipment should have enabled the drone operator to determine the nature of the objects under surveillance. The video posted online by the IDF indicates that this was the case: two of the cylindrical objects the men were loading onto the truck are visible, and both are clearly shorter than Grad rockets, which, at nearly three meters are taller than any grown man and longer than the width of the Mercedes-Benz 410 flatbed truck onto which the cylinders were being loaded crossways. The Russian-designed Grad rocket is a known weapon in the Hamas arsenal, and consequently recognizable to IDF personnel. As such, given the visual evidence, the drone operator should have considered the likelihood that these were not Grad rockets. In addition, according to the IDF video of the attack, the truck was under surveillance for more than two minutes, and possibly longer because the truck was not moving, so the operator should have had time to consult with superior officers on whether the truck could be considered a legitimate target.

Those killed in the attack were:[28]

• 'Imad Ahmad Muhammad Samur, 32
• Ashraf Sayed Khamis al-Dabbagh, 28
• Ahmad Ibrahim Kheleh, 18
• Muhammad Majid Ibrahim Ka'bar, 17
• Rami Sa'di Dib Ghabayen, 23
• Bilal Suhail Dib Ghabayen, 19 (died later from his wounds on January 2, 2009)
• Mahmud Nabil Dib Ghabayen, 13
• Wissam Akram Rabi' 'Eid, 13
• Muhammad Basil Mahmoud Madi, 17

On April 22 the IDF announced the results of its internal investigation into the conduct of its forces in Gaza, concluding that "throughout the fighting in Gaza, the IDF operated in accordance with international law."[29] The report looked at a number of cases, including the December 29, 2008 drone strike on the truck in Jabalya. The IDF admitted that its forces had not fired on Grad rockets:

The truck was targeted after the accumulation of information which indicated convincingly that it was carrying rockets between a known Hamas rocket manufacturing facility to a known rocket launching site. The attack was carried out near a known Hamas rocket manufacturing site and after a launch. It was only later discovered that the truck was carrying oxygen tanks (similar in appearance to Grad Missiles) and not rockets. The strike killed four Hamas operatives and four uninvolved civilians. It is important to note that the oxygen tanks being carried in the truck were likely to be used by Hamas for rocket manufacturing.[30]

The IDF has not elaborated on its claim that the strike killed four Hamas "operatives," or provided the names of those men. Ahmad Samur, Muhammad Sa'di Ghabayen and Basil Nabil Ghabayen all denied that any of the victims from the attack had been members of Hamas, fighters or otherwise.  Human Rights Watch also inspected a list of 171 Al-Qassam Brigade members whom Hamas said were killed in December 2008 and January 2009, and found none of the victims' names, although the list may not be complete.[31]

The after-the-fact assertion that the oxygen tanks constituted a legitimate military target because they were "likely to be used by Hamas for rocket manufacturing" is contrary to the laws-of-war requirement that an object can only be subject to attack when it makes an "effective contribution to military action" and when its destruction "in the circumstances ruling at the time" offers a "definite military advantage."[32] A possible future military use of an at-worst dual-use object (moreover, a use suggested after the initial justification for the attack was debunked) fails to meet that requirement and to justify an attack; such objects are presumed to be civilian.[33]

Masharawi family house, Gaza City

On January 4, 2009, the second day of Israel's ground offensive, at around 10:30 a.m., an IDF drone launched a missile at two boys playing on the rooftop of a two-story home in downtown Gaza City [GPS 31.51243/034.45655]. According to residents, the site was at least five kilometers from any fighting at the time between the IDF and Palestinian armed groups. IDF statements and media reports also report no fighting in that area at that time; Israeli forces did not enter central Gaza City until later in the ground offensive. Because the house is surrounded by taller buildings in the center of Gaza City, it is a highly unlikely site for firing rockets, and it would be a poor location for artillery spotting or reconnaissance.

Those killed were:

• Mahmud Khaled 'Alayyan al- Masharawi, 12
• Ahmad Khader Diyab Subayh, 17

"Our neighborhood was very calm at that time," Mahmud's brother, Ashraf Mashhrawi, 30, a freelance television cameraman who runs an independent news agency, told Human Rights Watch. "The tanks were more than five kilometers away to the northeast." According to Mashhrawi, many members of his extended family had sought refuge in his home because they believed the area was relatively safe. He said that various family members had gone to the roof that morning to play, but only Mahmud and Ahmad were up there when the missile struck.[34]

Ashraf 'Issawi, a neighbor who was in the doorway of the house when the missile hit and was the first to reach the victims on the roof, told Human Rights Watch about the attack. "I had heard drones overhead and then there was an explosion and everyone was screaming," he said. "I ran up to the roof and found the boys' bodies. Ahmad's leg was next to Mahmud who was still alive."[35]

Human Rights Watch researchers examined the rooftop of the building and found small cubic fragments, circuit boards, and blast patterns that were consistent with drone-launched missiles. They also examined fragments of clothing that the family said the children were wearing at the time of the attack. The clothes were perforated with dozens of tiny holes. Photos and a video of the children taken by Ashraf 'Issawi at the time of the attack show that the bodies were also perforated with dozens of tiny square wounds.[36] The incident was filmed by Ashraf's cameraman and later used in a documentary produced by the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation.[37]

Human Rights Watch has uncovered no evidence that the two boys on the roof were fighters or that they were otherwise directly participating in the hostilities. Given the optical capacity of the drones, the young age of the boys should have been apparent to the operator. And the location of the roof, deep in the center of Gaza City, was a poor location for engagement or artillery spotting. The absence of IDF ground forces in Gaza City as of that date, January 4, further undermines any military justifications for the attack.

Al-Habbash family house, al-Sha'f, Gaza City

On January 4, at around 3 p.m., an IDF drone launched a missile at six children playing on the roof of the al-Habbash family home in the al-Sha'f area of Gaza City [GPS 31.50928/034.47826]. The missile killed two girl cousins, ages 10 and 12, and injured three other children, two of whom lost their legs.

Those killed were:

• Shaza al-'Abd Muhammad al-Habbash, 10
• Isra Qusai Muhammad al-Habbash, 12

Those wounded were:

• Jamila al-'Abd al-Habbash, 14, legs amputated
• Mahmud 'Amr al-Habbash, 15, legs amputated
• Muhammad 'Amr al-Habbash, 16

Human Rights Watch interviewed Muhammad al-Habbash, 16, one of those injured in the attack. "We were playing as we used to do every day, running around. There were drones flying overhead," he said. "We stood near the edge of the roof looking down to the street…. I was thrown into the air and ran to the stairway amid the smoke."[38]

Muhammad al-Habbash, the father of one of the dead girls, Shaza, and a science teacher at an UNRWA school, was downstairs when the missile struck. "We keep chickens on the roof and the kids were feeding them and playing," he told Human Rights Watch. "We heard the drone above, but it was always flying around."[39]

Blast patterns on the roof of the house, perforations in the victims' clothes, and photographs of their injuries were all consistent with the cubic fragments of a drone-launched missile.

The father and two lightly wounded sons, interviewed separately, told Human Rights Watch that there was no fighting in the area at the time of the attack. "There were no Israelis in the area; it was the second day of ground fighting," Muhammad al-Habbash said. "And if there had been fighters nearby we would have left. It was a normal busy day, and if there had been fighting the children would not have been playing on the roof." Human Rights Watch inspected the roof of the al-Habbash home, and from that vantage point one has a view of the surrounding streets; the family probably would have known if Palestinian fighters were active in the area. Even if Palestinian fighters had been in the area, it remains unclear why the IDF targeted the al-Habbashs' roof, when the video surveillance on the drones should have allowed the drone operator to identify six children who were playing.

'Allaw family house, Al-Sha'f, Gaza City

On January 5, around noon, an IDF drone launched a missile at members of the 'Allaw family who were on the roof of their home [GPS 31.50828/034.47721], three blocks from the al-Habbash house, which was struck the day before. The missile killed a young boy and injured his brother and sister.

The individual killed was Mu'min Mahmoud Talal 'Allaw, 10.

Those injured were:

• Muhammad 'Allaw, 13
• Iman 'Allaw, 8.

Human Rights Watch separately interviewed three family members who were on the roof when the missile struck. Mu'min's mother Nahla 'Allaw told Human Rights Watch,

We were just sitting on the roof. It was cool and there was good weather. After five minutes I told my son I will just sit in the sun and went to the other end of the roof and sat down. Suddenly there was a powerful explosion. The roof was covered in white dust and smoke. I saw Mu'min on the bicycle. His legs were crushed, his chest had tiny small holes in it and blood poured from them. I carried him, crying. I ran to the stairway. He was breathing his last breath. I talked to him, saying, "It's alright my dear."[40]

Muhammad 'Allaw, the injured boy, told Human Rights Watch, "It [the drone] buzzed like bees around me. There was lots of smoke. There had been a drone overhead."[41]

The family knew of no Palestinian fighters nearby. If there had been any fighting in the area, they said, then they would not have been on the roof.

Human Rights Watch investigated the site of the blast and fragments from the missile. The site had the same fragmentation patterns as the other sites and the missile fragments were consistent with the other Spike attacks.

UNRWA Asma Elementary School, Gaza City

On the afternoon of January 5, 2009, the Sultan family from Beit Lahiya along with about 400 other people fled their homes due to fighting in the area and sought protection at the UNRWA Asma Elementary Co-educational "A" School in the center of Gaza City, which the UN had opened earlier that day as a shelter. The displaced families stayed in classrooms and used two bathrooms inside the main building. UNRWA officials registered 406 people in the school. According to UNRWA regulations, every individual who entered the school was subject to search, especially for weapons.[42]

The school was well marked as a UN facility. The IDF was reportedly not informed of its use as a shelter until January 6, but civilians lining up outside the school and inside the school compound would have been clearly visible by aerial surveillance.[43] According to the UN, it had also provided the IDF with the GPS coordinates of all its Gaza installations prior to the outbreak of major hostilities.[44] According to local residents and UN officials, no ground fighting took place in or near the school at any time during Operation Cast Lead; indeed, the IDF never claimed that it had deployed ground forces there.

After dinner, around 10 p.m., three young men from the al-Sultan family wanted to use the bathroom but the facilities in the school's main building were occupied, so they left the building to use the bathrooms in the courtyard. While there, a single Israeli missile directly struck the bathroom, killing all three. The hole in the bathroom wall and surrounding fragment marks, as shown by CNN and the BBC, are fully consistent with impact from a drone-launched Spike missile.

Those killed were:

• Rawhi Jamal al-Sultan, 24, unemployed
• Hussein Mahmud al-Sultan, 23, farmer
• Abed Samir al-Sultan, 19, student

Human Rights Watch separately interviewed two members of the al-Sultan family who were in the Asma school at the time of the attack. Hamada al-Sultan, an unemployed 21-year-old, interviewed in a tent in Beit Lahiya because his home was destroyed, described how his brother Abed and his two cousins were killed:

About 9:30 p.m. we were sitting in the classrooms of the Asma school without covers or mattresses because it was the first night for us there. Everyone was awake but all of us were inside the school. It was not allowed [by UN school security] for us to go outside to the yard or the bathrooms except with a pressing need.

My brother was sitting with us in our room with the cousins. After they had dinner, they went outside to the yard to go to the bathrooms because the two bathrooms inside the building were busy around the clock. I don't know if they went immediately to the bathrooms outside or they spent some time with our neighbors [who were also in the school].

When the rest of my family and I were in the classroom, suddenly we heard the sound of a very powerful explosion that seemed to be close. We thought the explosion was outside the school. We went outside from the classroom but we were all locked in the building. The guards did not allow us to go outside to the yard. The guards said that it is forbidden to go out and the hallways between the classes were overcrowded because all the families went out from the classrooms.

After nearly seven minutes we heard the sound of ambulances coming to the area, but we were shocked when we saw that the ambulances entered the school. At this point, we realized that the three guys were missing. In the beginning, we did not expect that they had been the target because, as I told you, we thought the strike was outside the school.

We searched for them [in the classrooms] inside the school but we did not find them. We thought they might have succeeded to convince the guards to let them out of the building to help. I tried to go outside but the guards prevented all of us. They told us that three people were hurt in the attack and that they were from the people who had moved into the school.

After a long argument with the guards, they let me out at 10:45 p.m. and I wanted to go to the hospital. There was no transportation at that time so I walked to Shifa hospital.In the hospital, I was told that they were dead so I went to the morgue. It was difficult for me to recognize them because they were burned and badly injured. I could identify them from parts of their clothes and one of them [Hussein] was a redhead, so I could recognize him.[45]

Recalling the moment of the attack, Hamada al-Sultan said,

We heard the sound of one explosion. It was by drones, because if it was an Apache [helicopter gunship] it would have caused wide destruction. This missile only destroyed the human beings. In the morning I saw their blood and small pieces of flesh on the walls at the entrance of the toilet rooms.

Before the attack happened, things were so quiet in the area because the incursion was far away. We were in the middle of Gaza City, we thought this is one of the safest places.

The father of Hussein al-Sultan, Mahmud al-Sultan, a 48-year-old employee of the Beit Lahiya municipality, interviewed separately, provided a similar account. He told Human Rights Watch,

At 9 p.m., we had dinner with Hussein. At nearly 10 he went downstairs, saying he had to go to the bathroom. When we were still sitting in the room, we were rocked by a big blast. We thought it had targeted a mosque that was some tens of meters away from the school. It was 10:30 when we heard the explosion. We did not think our sons were hit.

About 10 minutes later, we heard the sirens of the ambulances and I saw them from the window entering the school. I realized the strike was inside the school so I took all the children to the corridors to protect them in case more rockets fell.

I looked for my sons. I found Ashraf and Anis with me. I asked them, "Where is your brother Hussein?" They said he might be on another floor. We did not expect that they had been hit because we thought they had returned from the bathroom a half-hour before.

I asked them to search for Hussein and I was very annoyed and worried. In the meantime, some old men from my family came to my room and when I saw them I was sure that Hussein was harmed. Instead of relieving me, they were crying. Among them were the fathers of Hussein's two cousins.

We were not allowed to go outside. But the next day, at 8:30 a.m., we went to the hospital and took them for burial.

The situation was normal when the attack happened. In the silence of the night, we could hear the sound of firing and shootings but it was so far away.

I saw their blood on the external wall of the bathrooms. The missile fell on the gate of the toilet complex, and spread shrapnel on the ground and the wall, small circles of holes.[46]

Human Rights Watch saw two videos of the bathroom wall that the missile hit, taken shortly after the attack, one from CNN and the other from the BBC.[47] Both videos show a hole approximately one meter in diameter and fragmentation patterns on the nearby walls that are consistent with the impact marks of a Spike missile.

The BBC video includes an interview with another witness, presented as Tamir, whose short statement is consistent with the accounts of Hamada and Mahmud al-Sultan. "We were in room number six and we were surprised that three young men from my cousins went to the toilet and the drone hit them, thinking they were fighters, when in fact they were not," he told the journalist. "As you see, the rocket landed here and one of them was here ... you see his blood here and the shoes."[48]

The United Nations promptly condemned the attack, stressing that the IDF knew the location of the Asma school. "Well before the current fighting, the UN had given to the Israeli authorities the GPS co-ordinates of all its installations in Gaza, including the UNRWA school which was struck," said Maxwell Gaylard, head of the UN's Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) for the Occupied Palestinian Territories. "These tragic incidents need to be investigated, and if international humanitarian law has been contravened, those responsible must be held accountable."[49]

UNRWA Gaza Director John Ging, expressing concern that "[t]here's no place in Gaza safe for the ordinary people here, and they are terrorized by the fact that they can be next," told the BBC that, in addition to the UN having given the IDF the GPS coordinates of all its Gaza facilities, the Asma school was clearly marked with UN insignia, flags, and lights shining on the flags at night.[50]

In February 2009, the UN secretary-general appointed a Board of Inquiry to look at attacks during Operation Cast Lead on UN facilities and personnel.  The Board looked at nine incidents, including the January 5 attack on the Asma school. According to a summary of the Board's report, released by the secretary-general on May 4, an UNRWA guard at the school had let the three young men go outside to the bathroom just after 11 p.m.  At approximately 11:15, the missile struck within the school compound near the bathroom, killing the three men and damaging the school premises.  The UN Board considered whether the men might have been involved in military activity and concluded that "it is more probable that they were going out to use the toilets in the school compound in the normal course, and were not preparing to engage in military activity."  The Board noted that no weapons or ammunition were found in the school and that "it was difficult to accept that a weapon was smuggled into the compound before the incident and out of the compound afterwards."[51]

It is possible that before or after using the bathroom the three young men became subject to attack because they took actions that indicated to the drone operator that they were directly participating in the hostilities. Human Rights Watch uncovered no evidence to support such a conclusion.  The IDF has not made such a claim or provided any evidence to that effect.