2006 shelling of Beit Hanoun

The November 2006 Beit Hanoun incident occurred on 8 November 2006 when the Israel Defense Forces, shelled the Gaza Strip town of Beit Hanoun, killing 19 Palestinians and wounding more than 40. It occurred the day after the Israeli withdrawal following Operation Autumn Clouds, an operation by the Israeli military in the northern Gaza Strip with the stated purpose of responding to Qassam rockets fired by Palestinian militants.

Incident

Aiming at Palestinian Qassam rockets and Grad launchers in an open area, seven of the shells landed 1 km off target and hit houses in the outskirts of Beit Hanoun. Israel claimed the shells were fired in response to a Qassam rocket attack, which was launched the previous day from near the area where the shells fell. The Israeli military said that the rockets were probably launched from a car driven into the area. The Israeli military said that their shells were mis-aimed because of a failure in the artillery battery's guidance system. Eight children and seven women were among the dead, and at least 40 people were wounded. 13 of the dead belonged to the same family, two of them women and six of them children.

Reactions

Palestinian Reactions

• Palestinian National Authority - The Palestinian prime minister, Hamas's Ismail Haniya, denounced the Israeli attack as an "awful massacre" and said talks on forming more moderate Palestinian unity government would be suspended. Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas said "...ugly massacre committed by the occupation against our children, our women and elderly...you (the Israelis) do not want peace at all..."
• Hamas - A local Hamas leader has called for the group to resume suicide bombings inside Israel, a policy officially suspended two years ago.

Israeli Reactions

• Israeli Government - Israeli Defense Minister Amir Peretz ordered the halt in artillery attacks and called for an urgent inquiry into the incident. Prime Minister Ehud Olmert expressed regret over the killings and offered humanitarian assistance to the wounded. In his address to the UN Security Council, Israel's deputy UN representative Daniel Carmon reiterated Israel's "deep sorrow and regret" over the accidental killing of innocent civilians. But he told the council that terrorism by Hamas was to blame for the Beit Hanoun incident. "If Palestinian terror did not continue to assault Israelis, if Qassam rockets stopped sailing out of Gaza into Israel, the incident in Beit Hanoun would never have happened," Carmon said. "A single decision is needed: The Palestinian Authority government must decide to stop using terrorism as a means to achieving its goals." A short time later, Palestinian terrorists launched more Qassam rockets into Israel, killing a civilian woman. The Israeli Prime Minister's office released a statement saying "This is precisely the type of murderous attacks that we are trying to prevent. Israel will take any means necessary in protecting our citizens."
• Israeli Peace groups including Peace Now and Gush Shalom and political parties Meretz and Hadash held a protest in Tel Aviv shortly after news of the killings broke.
• Israeli human rights group B'Tselem has described the policy of returning fire to the general area from which a rocket attack is launched as a 'war crime'.

International Reactions

• Amnesty International - "The killing of 18 civilians in the Palestinian town of Beit Hanoun, victims of Israeli shelling, was an appalling act," Amnesty International said. Amnesty called for an immediate, independent investigation and for those responsible to be held accountable. It further said that Israeli investigation had been seriously inadequate and failed to meet international standards for such investigations.

• Arab League - Arab League secretary general Amr Moussa said "These massacres of children, women and civilians are unjustified and incomprehensible and unexpected. Israeli policies in the Palestinian territories have gone too far."

• European Union - Speaking on behalf of the European Union, Finland's UN Ambassador Kirsti Lintonen recognized Israel's "legitimate right to self-defense" but urged Israel to "exercise utmost restraint" and underlined that "action should not be disproportionate or in contradiction to international law." "We call on Israel to end its incursion in Gaza," she added, while pressing Palestinian leaders to put an end to the firing of rockets on Israeli territory.

• Italy - Italian Foreign Minister Massimo D'Alema has suggested that the strike was a deliberate action by the Israeli government to stop Hamas from forming a government of national unity in the Palestinian territories. He told his party's newspaper L'Unita, "What happened in Beit Hanoun is a result of political choices."

• Russia- Russian Foreign ministry statement said Russia urges "both sides to stop the bloodbath - by ending these attacks, whose victims are totally innocent people, and taking urgent measures to stabilise the situation and restart political dialogue."

• Syria - Syrian foreign ministry statement called the incident a "savage attack", "a challenge to the international community" that "must be vehemently condemned." Syria also asked UN Security Council to stop "massacres" committed by Israel and punish it for its "repeated crimes."

• Turkey - Turkish Foreign ministry statement said that this "disproportionate and indiscriminate use of force" will lead into indefinite postponement of peaceful co-existence between Israel and Palestine.

• United Kingdom - UK Foreign secretary Margaret Beckett said "It is hard to see what this action was meant to achieve and how it can be justified... Israel must respect its obligation to avoid harming civilians."

• United States - US Ambassador John Bolton said that while Washington deeply regretted the loss of Palestinian lives, it also believed that Israel has the right "to defend itself and the lives of its citizens."

UN resolution

Security Council

On 12 November 2006, in response to calls from the Palestinian authorities, Qatar proposed an Arab-backed resolution to the UN Security Council urging an immediate withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza and condemning the Israeli attack. The draft resolution was approved by nine other countries (Argentina, China, Congo, France, Ghana, Greece, Peru, Russia, and Tanzania); abstained upon by Denmark, Japan, Slovakia, and the United Kingdom; and voted against by the United States, which holds veto power, on grounds that it was "biased against Israel and politically motivated".[1]. U.S. Secretary Condoleezza Rice called the resolution draft "a one-sided political agenda", while U.S. ambassador to the U.N. John Bolton said it "does not display an evenhanded characterization of the recent events in Gaza, nor does it advance the cause of Israeli-Palestinian peace."

General Assembly

The General Assembly adopted a resolution deploring Israeli military actions in Gaza and calling for UN mission to Beit Hanoun. The resolution was accepted by a wide margin, with 7 country opposes and 6 abstains. This has been criticized as a displaying a double standard [2], as no resolution was passed on an apparently similar incident, Kathiraveli November 2006 massacre occurring on the same day, where at least 45 Tamil civilians were killed by Sri Lankan army artillery fire [3].

External links

• Video of aftermath of the shelling at YouTube (needs login)