Amnesty accuses Israel of war crimes

Israel is guilty of war crimes in its destruction of thousands of Palestinian homes in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, the human rights group Amnesty International said in a report.

Release of the report in Jerusalem coincided with an Israeli operation in the Rafah refugee camp on the Israel-Egypt border, where Israel was poised to knock down more houses to widen a buffer zone in its battle against weapons-smuggling tunnels.

The report said the demolition and destruction were “grave breaches of the Fourth Geneva Convention and are war crimes,” and called on Israel to halt the practices immediately. Amnesty also said the house demolitions were linked to Israeli intentions to take over West Bank and Gaza land.

According to the report, Israel has destroyed more than 3,000 Palestinian homes, most of them in the impoverished and densely populated Gaza Strip, since Palestinian Israeli fighting broke out more than three years ago.

The report also found that 10% of Gaza’s agricultural land had been destroyed and more than 226,000 trees uprooted there in 2002 and 2003.