Air attacks during Israel’s Operation Pillar of Defense in the Gaza Strip last November appear to have violated laws of war, says Human Rights Watch (HRW). Its recent report cites 18 separate airstrikes by drones and other aircraft, during which at least 43 civilians, including 12 children, were killed. The report provides rare detail into the impact of the use of Israeli drones, but has received almost no coverage in the mainstream media.
HRW discovered that Israeli drone strikes on 19 November killed three men in a truck carrying tomatoes in Deir al-Balah, and a science teacher who was sitting in his front yard with his three-year-old son on his lap, talking to an acquaintance. The toddler, who was the sole survivor, was seriously wounded. Other drone-launched missile attacks killed a 79-year-old man and his 14-year-old granddaughter in the family’s olive grove in Abasan; a farmer and his nephew as they were walking on a road near their olive trees in the Khan Yunis area; and a 28-year-old woman carrying a blanket in the yard of her home in the town of Khuza’a.
