In a new report based on forensic analysis and eyewitness testimony, the group says that at least 87 Palestinian civilians were killed by Israeli drones during the 22-day offensive on the Hamas-ruled territory launched in December.
“It is absolutely unacceptable, clearly unlawful and not what we expect from the world’s most moral military,” Marc Garlasco, the author of the report, told reporters in Jerusalem. “It looks as if they had almost an itchy trigger finger,” said Garlasco, who was previously a Pentagon intelligence official in charge of strikes on high-value targets during the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq.
He added that the unmanned drones, which can hover over an area for more than 24 hours at a time and are equipped with precision cameras, are “the most precise, the most distinguishing of all weapons that any military has in its arsenal”.
“We were quite surprised during our mission in Gaza to actually find so many civilians killed by these weapons,” he added, saying the level of civilian deaths from drone strikes in Gaza was “nowhere near the level” seen in southern Lebanon during the 2006 war with Hizbullah.
The Israeli military slammed the report and insisted it made every effort to spare civilians during the fighting.
“(The military) made use of advanced technology, tactics and weapon systems which minimised the risk to non-combatants and civilian property,” it said.
“This was done while confronting terrorists, who intentionally operated from within the Gaza Strip’s densely populated areas and used civilians as human shields,” it added in a written statement.
The military faulted the group for relying on the testimony of Palestinian witnesses “whose knowledge of military issues is doubtful.”
But the rights group, which reports on dozens of conflict zones across the world, said Israeli authorities did not respond to a list of detailed questions on each incident sent to them in March and reprinted in the report.
Israel prevented media or human rights monitors from entering Gaza during and immediately after the war and has declined to meet with Human Rights Watch.
The group provided a detailed analysis of six strikes in which drones killed 29 civilians, including eight children, and said it chose the cases because it was clear there were no fighting or militants in the area of the attacks.
In the deadliest incident, on December 27, an Israeli drone fired a missile at a group of people waiting at a bus stop in central Gaza City, killing nine students, two of them women, and three other civilians.
The attack took place in broad daylight during the opening air assault on the territory, several days before any Israeli ground forces entered.
In another case, on January 5, a drone missile struck the UN-run Asma primary school in Gaza City, killing three young men from the same family while they were using the toilet, the group said.
Meanwhile, rival Palestinian factions Hamas and Fatah said prospects for a breakthrough have improved in their reconciliation talks which continued in the Egyptian capital on Tuesday.
Azzam al-Ahmad, head of Fatah’s parliamentary group, signalled “a clear easing of tensions in the talks... on the prisoners and on other issues.”
A meeting between the delegations and their mediator, Egyptian intelligence chief Omar Suleiman, “saved the sixth round of negotiations from failure,” he said, quoted by Egypt’s state news agency MENA late on Monday. “I think the signing of a July 7 accord is now within reach,” he said.
As last reports came in, the Israeli navy boarded and seized a ship carrying pro-Palestinian activists that was heading to the Gaza Strip in defiance of Israel’s blockade, a military spokesman said.
“In the last hour an Israeli navy force intercepted, boarded and took control of the cargo boat ‘Arion’ ... as it was illegally attempting to enter the Gaza Strip,” the spokesman said late in the afternoon.
The military said the ship, which was sailing under a Greek flag, was the same vessel known as the “Spirit of Humanity,” which was sailing to Gaza to protest the Israeli blockade on the Hamas-ruled territory.
The spokesman said the navy had been contacting the boat since Monday evening and warned that it would not be allowed to enter Gazan waters “because of security risks and an existing naval blockade.”
After the navy boarded the converted ferry it towed the vessel toward the nearby Israeli port of Ashdod, the spokesman said, adding that the activists on board would be handed over to authorities.
The boat was sent by the US-based Free Gaza Movement, which said it was carrying a “symbolic” cargo of humanitarian aid to pressure governments and international relief groups to do more to rebuild Gaza.
Activists have made five successful missions to Gaza from Cyprus since August 2008 — but boats have been turned back twice by Israeli forces.