http://www.hrw.org/press/2001/06/isr0616.htm
Israel: Dart Shells Pose Civilian Threat
Human Rights Watch
(New York, June 16, 2001) Human Rights Watch today welcomed Israel's
announcement that it will investigate the June 9 tank shelling that
killed three Palestinian Bedouin women. The women were killed and
three other people injured when the shells sprayed razor-sharp darts,
known as flechettes, in a populated area where they lived between Gaza
City and the Israeli settlement of Netzarim. Human Rights Watch said
that the findings of the investigation should be made public and those
found responsible held accountable.
Israel has acknowledged that it used flechette munitions in Gaza.
Human Rights Watch urged Israel to expand the investigation to include
an examination of the use of such anti-personnel weapons in dealing
with Palestinian unrest, and asked for a public commitment by the
Israeli government that such weapons will not be used in the future in
or around populated areas. "Anti-personnel weapons that have a large
'kill radius' must never be used in areas where civilians live," said
Hanny Megally, executive director of the Middle East and North Africa
division of Human Rights Watch. "While flechette ammunition is not
banned under international law, its use in such circumstances is
highly questionable since it raises risk of civilian casualties to a
threshold that is intolerable under international law."
The three women, Selmiya al-Malalha, 37, Hekmat al-Malalha, 17, and
Nasra al-Malalha, 61, were killed, and three other family members
wounded when their tents were hit by 120 mm tank shells packed with
thousands of steel darts. The al-Malalha clan lived in an area
surrounded by populated villages about 1.5 km from the Netzarim
settlement.
Salem Naji al-Malalha, 22, the husband of Hekmat, told Human Rights
Watch that he had heard some shooting several hours earlier from the
Shouhada [also known as Netzarim] Junction area, about 1.5 kilometers
away. "About two hours later I heard a big explosion and felt the
earth shake," he said. "The first shell exploded about four meters
from the women's tent"- referring to the tent where his wife,
mother-in-law, and sister-in-law were sitting. "The second and third
shells fell fifty meters further away. I could see that the tent in
which the women were staying was full of blood."
Salem's mother, who was in a tent with him, was wounded. "She was
injured by three nails," he told Human Rights Watch. "They are not
really nails. They look like small missiles. They are incredible, they
made holes through the metal, they made holes in my water jugs and
they even went through the cement."
On June 11, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said that the killing of the
three women "should not have happened." Israel Defense Forces (IDF)
officials, who initially had said that troops were returning fire from
the area, confirmed the next day that the shelling had been a mistake
and said there would be an inquiry.
A 1996 study by Human Rights Watch, Civilian Pawns: Laws of War
Violations and the Use of Weapons on the Israel-Lebanon Border,
investigated the IDF's use of U.S.-supplied tank-fired flechette
munitions in southern Lebanon. The IDF used these rather than other
types of anti-personnel weapons in this conflict mainly for their
ability to penetrate dense foliage, which is not characteristic of
Gaza. The shells used in southern Lebanon contained ten to fourteen
thousand 1.5 inch steel darts that, when released from the canister,
spread out in an arc that had a maximum width of about ninety-four
yards.
"Even if Palestinian gunmen fired from the vicinity of a populated
area, Israel is not free from its obligation to minimize civilian
casualties in returning fire," Megally said. "It is hard to see how
the use of this weapon in this context can be consistent with
international legal principles outlawing indiscriminate attacks."
