Israel Is 'Obliterating Entire Families With Total Impunity' in Gaza, Amnesty Finds

In the wake of Israel's bombardment of Rafah in Gaza early Monday—and with the threat of a ground invasion looming—Amnesty International released a report detailing four strikes on the supposed "safe" zone that the organization said must be investigated as war crimes.

The strikes killed at least 95 civilians and 42 children, yet Amnesty could not find any evidence that the attacks—carried out against residential dwellings in December and January—hit legitimate military infrastructure or targets. Amnesty said its report shows "how Israeli forces continue to flout international humanitarian law, obliterating entire families with total impunity."

It is a war crime to either target civilians or indiscriminately pursue a military target in a way that harms civilians.

"Entire families were wiped out in Israeli attacks even after they sought refuge in areas promoted as safe and with no prior warning from Israeli authorities," Erika Guevara-Rosas, Amnesty International's senior director of research, advocacy, policy, and campaigns, said in a statement. "These attacks illustrate an ongoing pattern of Israeli forces brazenly flouting international law, contradicting claims by Israeli authorities that their forces are taking heightened precautions to minimize harm to civilians."

"We went to Rafah looking for safety, we thought it was safer in the south."

For the report, Amnesty visited the location of all four attacks, took photos and videos, and spoke to 18 survivors and first responders. Three of the four attacks occurred at night, and none of the residents in the targeted buildings received any prior warning.

"Among those killed in these unlawful attacks were a baby girl who had not yet turned three weeks, a prominent 69-year-old retired physician, a journalist who welcomed displaced families into his house, and a mother sharing a bed with her 23-year-old daughter," Guevara-Rosas said. "The testimonies that grieving survivors shared should serve as a reminder that these atrocity crimes in Gaza are a stain on the collective conscience of the world."

The first attack investigated by Amnesty took place on December 12, 2023 at 3:02 am local time in Rafah's Al-Zuhour neighborhood. It hit and destroyed two homes belonging to the Harb family, killing 25 civilians including 10 children and one pregnant woman. It also injured at least 17 others.

Thirty-year-old survivor Islam Harb told Amnesty that the attack killed three of his four children:

I heard a huge blast. I don't remember seeing anything, I just heard a very loud blast and lost consciousness. I woke up in hospital; the first thing I remember is asking about my children. Only Leen, the 4-year-old, survived; my family spent days trying to dig the remains of the dead out of the rubble. The body of my [25-year-old] brother Khalil was found 200 meters away from the house due to the power of the strike, in pieces. My children's small bodies were torn to pieces.

The second strike occurred on December 14 at around 11:45 am and destroyed the home of 69-year-old retired surgeon Abdallah Shehada. The blast killed Shehada and 29 other civilians and wounded at least 10 people. A total of 11 children were killed.

Shehada had opened his home to people fleeing violence in northern Gaza. Further, at least two of the people sheltering in the house had work permits to cross the border into Israel. This means they had previously been vetted by Israeli authorities.

"This was the house of a doctor who devoted his life to helping people, a house where displaced people were seeking refuge… We spent days trying to dig the bodies out of the rubble, people who just wanted to be safe," Shehada's 36-year-old son Yousef, himself a surgeon at the European Hospital in Khan Younis, told Amnesty. Yousef said he had left the house one hour before the attack.

One survivor, 27-year-old Thaer al-Haddad, lost his wife and both his parents in the strike.

"We went to Rafah looking for safety, we thought it was safer in the south," al-Haddad told Amnesty.

"In light of the appalling scale of death and destruction, all states have a clear obligation to act to prevent genocide yet instead key states have failed to make a clear call for a cease-fire and are continuing to fuel war crimes by supplying arms to Israel."

The third strike occurred on December 19 at around 1:30 am. This destroyed the home of Omar Zu'rub in western Rafah. It killed 22 civilians, among them 11 children, injuring at least 16 others that Amnesty was able to identify.

One survivor, Malak Al-Shaer, said she woke up to find herself buried in debris.

"I couldn't open my eyes because they were full of glass, shrapnel, and sand," she said. "My whole body was beneath the rubble, only my foot was visible, maybe it took 20 minutes for the rescuers to get me out."

Al-Shaer's husband and 16-year-old daughter died in the strike.

The last strike took place on January 9, 2024 around 11 pm. It hit the two upper-most floors of a home belonging to the Nofal family. The blast killed 18 civilians, 10 of them children, and wounded at least eight.

What's more, the home was located in the Tal Al-Sultan neighborhood, toward which the Israel Defense Forces have often directed people fleeing to safety.

"The map [Israeli forces] sent specifically mentioned Tal Al-Sultan as one of the safe neighborhoods," Nidal Nofal, a 47-year-old nurse who lives on the first floor of the building, told Amnesty. "Minutes before 11 pm, my son shouted that he had heard a strike… once I opened the door and looked outside, I saw shards of glass flying all over the place."

Amnesty weapons experts were able to use fragments to identify the bomb as a GBU-39 Small Diameter Bomb, which is made by Boeing in the U.S.

"In light of the appalling scale of death and destruction, all states have a clear obligation to act to prevent genocide yet instead key states have failed to make a clear call for a cease-fire and are continuing to fuel war crimes by supplying arms to Israel," Guevara-Rosas said.

Amnesty International backed up its on-the-ground investigation with analysis of satellite images, photos, and videos by its Crisis Evidence Lab. It also looked for the attacks in Israel's official war diary, but could find no mention of them. Israeli authorities did not respond to further requests for information.

The report, documenting evidence of potential war crimes, comes after the International Court of Justice ruled it was plausible that Israel was committing acts of genocide in Gaza.

"Following the International Court of Justice's key interim ruling that the risk of genocide is real and imminent, the horrific details of these cases reinforce the urgency for all states to push for an immediate and sustained cease-fire, which is the most effective way to implement the provisional measures ordered by the court," Guevara-Rosas said. "They also underscore the importance of imposing a comprehensive arms embargo on all parties to the conflict."

Guevara-Rosas also urged the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court to speed its investigation into war crimes committed by Israel and Hamas.

"Several victims' families said the struggle for some measure of justice is all that keeps them going despite their loss, highlighting the importance of tackling longstanding impunity for war crimes and other crimes under international law by Israeli forces," she said.