Close to one-third of the Palestinians who died in the latest outbreak of violence between Israel and Gaza terrorists may have been killed by errant rockets fired by the Palestinian side, according to an Israeli military assessment.
Forty-nine Palestinians were killed in the three days of heavy fighting, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry. The Israeli military said at least 14 of them were killed by misfiring rockets from the Islamic Jihad terrorist group.
No one in Gaza with direct knowledge of the explosions in question was willing to speak about them publicly. But live TV footage showed terrorist rockets falling short in densely packed residential neighborhoods. And AP visits to the sites of two explosions that killed a total of 12 people lent support to suspicions they were caused by rockets that went off course.
Israel is claiming victory in the three-day clash, in part because it killed two senior Islamic Jihad commanders and because no Israelis were killed or seriously wounded. If it turns out that Islamic Jihad harmed some of those it claims to protect, it would make for an even more humiliating outcome for the terrorist group and its main sponsor, Iran.
Israel said it targeted only terrorists and made every effort to spare civilians.
The violence began on Aug. 5, when Israel launched a wave of airstrikes against Islamic Jihad because of what the military described as an imminent threat to Israelis living near the Gaza frontier. By the time a cease-fire took effect late Aug. 7, Islamic Jihad had fired hundreds of rockets into Israel, and Israeli aircraft had struck dozens of suspected terrorist targets.
The Israeli army said terrorists fired about 1,100 rockets, with about 200 landing inside the Palestinian enclave.
Islamic Jihad said 12 of its fighters were killed, a smaller armed group said it lost a fighter, and the ruling Hamas terrorist group said two Hamas-affiliated policemen who did not take part in the fighting were killed. Israel said it killed at least 20 terrorists and seven civilians.
Neither Hamas nor Islamic Jihad responded to Israel’s claims that civilians were killed by misfired rockets. Instead, they have held Israel responsible for all the deaths.
Gaza-based human rights groups investigating the strikes also declined to address the claims. But their initial findings indicate that at least some of the explosions were questionable.
The Al-Mezan human rights group said some civilians were killed by “projectiles” rather than Israeli airstrikes. The Palestinian Center for Human Rights (PCHR) said it has so far confirmed that 27 people were killed by Israeli strikes—far below the overall toll.
PCHR director Raji Sourani said that the group has issued statements on only those incidents in which there was no ambiguity, and that the others will take more time to investigate because of “contradicting allegations.” He did not elaborate.
“We need eyewitnesses, shrapnel, videos, and evidence,” he said. “There must be an investigation.”
The suspicions are focused on three explosions in which at least 15 civilians were killed.
On the night of Aug. 6, seven Palestinians were killed in a blast in the crowded Jebaliya refugee camp in northern Gaza. The Israeli military said it carried out no operations in the area at the time. It released video footage purportedly showing a barrage of terrorist rockets, with one falling short.
Islamic Jihad had announced a rocket attack on the southern Israeli city of Ashkelon, just north of Jebaliya, at around the same time as the explosion.
Video footage of the aftermath circulated online, showing what appeared to be a rocket casing sticking out of the ground on a narrow, busy street. When the AP visited the site on Aug. 8, the casing was gone and the hole had been filled in with dirt. Palestinians are usually keen to display evidence of Israeli airstrikes to international media.
Al-Mezan attributed the blast to a “projectile,” and the PCHR said it was still investigating.
On the night of Aug. 7, an explosion killed five Palestinians ages 4 to 17 at a cemetery in Jebaliya, also around the same time Islamic Jihad announced a barrage of rockets. The Israeli military said it was investigating.
Visiting both sites in Jebaliya, the AP saw none of the telltale signs of an Israeli strike—the wide craters left by F-16s or the narrow holes caused by drone strikes.
In a third suspicious explosion, one of the Hamas-affiliated policemen, who was off-duty, was killed on Aug. 7 along with three of his young children in the Bureij refugee camp in central Gaza. Hamas, a much stronger terrorist group that has fought four wars with Israel, stayed out of the latest fighting, and Israel appears to not have been targeting it.
Al-Mezan and the PCHR said they are still investigating that episode.
