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Photo: AFP
|Wounded in Beit Hanoun
Photo: AFP

Petition: Increase artillery security range

Seven months ago human rights groups petitioned High Court against IDF decision to reduce security range for artillery fire from 300 to 100 meters. Groups demand court make decision

Six Israeli human rights organizations called on the High Court of Justice to advance legal proceedings on the petition filed seven months ago against the IDF’s decision to reduce the security range of artillery fire from 300 to 100 meters away from civilian targets.

 

Representatives of the organizations noted that the “tragic events this morning” in Beit Hanoun, in which numerous civilians were killed and wounded, once again raise the need to hasten the juridical examination of the issue.

 

The organizations said “the reduced security range is insufficient, and leads to the death and injury of many civilians uninvolved in the fighting. Thus, this (IDF) order is clearly illegal, and a black flag flies over it.”

 

The petition was filed by Attorney Michael Sefarad, who represents the six human rights organizations.

 

“Although the first deliberation on the petition took place half a year ago, and even though many months have passes since the petitioning groups filed a detailed list of numbers and name of civilians casualties apparently hurt due to the diminished security range – the High Court made no decision regarding continued deliberation of the case,” Sefarad said.

 

“In the meantime, the IDF continued shelling Gaza, implementing directives regarding the reduced security range, and the number of civilian casualties rose significantly. The shelling this morning which killed 19 people, mostly women and children and 11 of them from the same family , raises the concern that this strike came out of the same policy that the petition addresses and the urgency of a High Court decision.”

 

The petitioning groups added that beyond the high death toll, as a result of artillery fire and other confrontations, the civilian population in Gaza suffers from severe distress and poverty as a direct result of the blockade on the strip and the difficulties in transported food, medicine, gas and other necessities. .

 


פרסום ראשון: 11.09.06, 00:12
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