Displacement and Destruction of Property

Shalom Halevy, spokesperson for Sderot municipality, said that “over 8,000 rockets have fallen on Sderot and the surrounding area since 2001, killing 15 people.  I’ve lost count of how many times they came close to getting me.”[51]  Rockets fired since December 27, 2008 hit civilian population centers over a larger area than ever before, including Ashdod, Beer Sheva and Gedera, a city 30 kilometers from Tel Aviv, placing roughly 800,000 people within rocket range.[52]  Damaged or destroyed civilian property since that date includes a synagogue,[53] a kindergarten,[54] a school,[55] as well as private homes and cars.[56] During the first days of the recent Israeli offensive, scores of rockets were launched each day.  Israeli public schools and universities closed throughout southern Israel for weeks due to rocket fire during the conflict.

Yehuda Ben Maman, head security officer for Sderot municipality, provided Human Rights Watch with records showing that 90 rockets hit the city during the period of Israel’s recent offensive in Gaza. He said that approximately another 40 rockets had hit Sderot between January 18 and March 18.  Two or three private homes were badly damaged, he said, adding that in total, “around 4,000 people out of our population of 24,000 people have left Sderot in the past 2 years, and this accelerated during the war.”[57] 

According to Eddy Ben-Hamo, the Ashdod municipal spokesman, 23 Grad rockets hit Ashdod during Israel’s military operation in Gaza, and none since the end of the fighting.  Two kindergartens were among the structures damaged, Gan Arava and Gan Morasha, though both were empty at the time.  “Most people didn’t leave [Ashdod] but school was cancelled for two weeks, so the ultra-Orthodox [Jewish population] had to leave during the war, because they have an [religious] obligation to study.”[58]

One rocket fired during the three-week conflict apparently fell short of its intended target and struck a humanitarian aid warehouse at the Karni border crossing.[59]  The warehouse was storing oil, tuna, sugar, maize, wheat flour, and other food aid intended for Gazan residents.

Firing Rockets from Populated Areas

Numerous Palestinians in Gaza told Human Rights Watch that during the course of Israel’s aerial campaign and subsequent invasion of Gaza in late December and early January, members of Palestinian armed groups redeployed from more open and outlying regions – many of which were either controlled by Israeli ground forces or “covered” by armed aerial drones, helicopters, and fighter aircraft – into densely populated urban areas.  The International Crisis Group quoted an Islamic Jihad fighter as saying, “the most important thing is achieving our military goals,” among which was to continue firing rockets in defiance of the stated Israeli aim to end the rocket attacks.[60]  He told the Crisis Group, “We stay away from the houses if we can, but that’s often impossible.” 

While fighting in urban areas is not prohibited under the laws of war, parties to a conflict are obligated to adopt measures to minimize the risk to the civilian population.[61] During the recent fighting and at other times, Palestinian armed groups have placed fellow Palestinians at grave risk of Israeli counter-attacks by firing rockets from within or near populated areas.  In doing so, they violate the laws of war by failing to take all feasible precautions to avoid placing military targets within or near densely populated areas, to remove civilians under their control from the vicinity of military targets, and to protect civilians from the danger resulting from military operations.[62] 

In most of the following cases, Human Rights Watch researchers found that armed groups endangered civilians by firing rockets from populated areas. 

In one case, a resident in northern Gaza City told Human Rights Watch that he and others had been on the roof of his building watching Israeli bombing raids on the first day of the Israeli assault. He said that around 5 p.m. “[w]e saw Hamas come and put up rocket launchers and fire. We could tell they were Grads by the sound, which is louder and deeper than that of Qassams.”  According to the witness, the rockets were fired in a populated neighborhood near a well-known landmark, the al-Andalus tower.  The witness specified, “they fired from between a medium-sized cow shed and some houses. There were maybe 60 meters between the cow shed and the houses.”  It is not clear if the houses were inhabited at the time.  In any case, ten minutes later, the witness said, “there was a retaliatory strike by an F-16 [fighter-bomber], a really big explosion.”[63]

The witness also said that, in a second incident on January 1, residents of the area shouted at Hamas fighters to prevent them from entering a garden immediately next to the building he lived in, apparently with the intention to use it to fire rockets.  “I had already left [the area] but my neighbor, the grocery store owner, was watching and he called me to come back,” the witness said. “The Hamas guys had already cut the wires of the gate to break in. All the people got together and shouted at them to leave, told them the rockets were going to backfire on us. After that we came back every day to the garden for a few hours to prevent them from firing from it.”  Hamas did not return to the area, according to the witness.

Human Rights Watch researchers did not find any cases where Hamas or other armed groups forced civilians to remain in areas in close proximity to rocket launching sites. 

Human Rights Watch was unable to determine the locations from which militants fired rockets in Tel el-Hawa, or if they fired from locations very close to civilians when other firing positions were available. The lawyer who was badly injured by a Palestinian rocket on December 24 (see above) said he was unsure where fighters fired rockets in his neighborhood: “Not from rooftops, but that doesn’t make much difference when the IDF responds with an F-16 or heavy artillery.”[64] In the months before the Israeli attack, he said, “we heard strange sounds coming just after the dawn prayers. We knew it was rockets being fired, but we never expected this [the rocket that fell on his home]. And this morning [April 10], we heard the same sounds again. We were all talking about it at lunch.” He added, “I do not deny the right of occupied people to resist, but I think that the means should be reevaluated.”

Two residents of the Tel al-Hawa neighborhood in the southern part of Gaza City separately told Human Rights Watch that they could hear repeated rocket firings from the neighborhood during the Israeli operation, but could not identify the precise location of the launch sites. One said he heard “several” rockets being fired between December 27, when Israel launched its initial air strikes, and January 4, 2009, when he left the area for security reasons. The other resident remained in Tel al-Hawa throughout the period of heavy fighting and said he had heard “many” launches. The second man said neighbors had told him of a case in which fighters reportedly fired a rocket from within the courtyard of a building.  Neither knew of rockets being launched from inhabited buildings or areas nearby, or whether Hamas made efforts to remove the buildings’ residents before firing rockets.[65]

The doctor whose home in Shajai’ya had been damaged by a rocket (see above) said that neighbors told him they saw the rocket being launched from an open agricultural area about 250 meters southwest of his home.  “It was fired by a timer. Right after that there was a[n IDF] drone over us for 10 minutes – I’m sure it saw the damage to my house.”  In another case, the doctor said, militants had fired a rocket much closer to the row of houses along his street. He said that a week before Israel began major military operations, an IDF helicopter fired a missile in response to a rocket firing “just 50 meters from here, inside the compound of the Palestinian power authority.” He indicated a wall directly across the street from his home. The Palestinian fighters “fired from inside the walls of the compound. Then the helicopter fired back,” shooting a missile into the main building in the compound.  By using the compound of the power authority for military purposes, the Palestinian forces were making the normally civilian structure a lawful military target and may have been placing the residents of nearby homes at unnecessary risk.

According to the doctor, residents of the area felt endangered and angered by the militants’ use of their area as a launching site.  Two weeks before the rocket hit his home, he said, “another rocket fell short, but the people where the rocket landed didn’t know the name of the person responsible, and I think they were too afraid to ask.” He and his neighbors “went to the political leaders in the area and complained, and later they gave me money to repair the windows, though not the damage inside the house.”[66] The authorities made no promises to stop the rocket fire, he added.

As noted, parties to a conflict violate the laws of war when they fail to take all feasible precautions to avoid placing forces, weapons, and ammunition within or near densely populated areas. Deliberately using civilians to deter attacks on military targets amounts to “human shielding,” which is a war crime[67]  In the preceding cases, Human Rights Watch either could not determine or the evidence did not indicate that militants launched rockets from areas close to civilians with the intention of deterring Israeli forces from counter-attacking.  The International Crisis Group interviewed three Hamas fighters in January who said they “often fired [rockets] in close proximity to homes and from alleys, hoping that nearby civilians would deter Israel from responding”[68]  -- indicating the intent to use civilians as shields.  The Crisis Group’s report and the staff who conducted the interviews did not provide further details or specific cases of shielding. The Crisis Group reported that after the conflict, some Gaza residents unsuccessfully “urged a government investigation of, and accountability for, fighters who endangered civilians” by firing from populated areas.   

The IDF has publicized some aerial surveillance video footage of members of armed groups launching rockets from civilian areas, which it claims is evidence of shielding.[69]  One video clip, which the IDF has published on the YouTube website, shows footage of a rocket being launched from an area between two nearby buildings whose construction is typical of elementary and secondary schools in the Gaza Strip. [70]  However, the video does not appear to constitute evidence of shielding, given that no civilians are visible – the area appears deserted.  Firing rockets near school buildings or other normally civilian structures makes those buildings valid military targets, but would constitute a laws of war violation if civilians remained present, and shielding if the fighters deliberately used them to deter attacks.  Human Rights Watch could not identify the location of the rocket launch sites shown in these videos.