MOST VICTIMS OF ISRAELI STRIKES ON GAZA WERE CHILDREN : REPORT

       Gaza, 30 Jumadil Akhir 1434/10 May 2013 (MINA) – More than half those killed during Israel’s operation in the Gaza Strip last November were innocent civilians and a third were children, the Israeli human rights group said in a report released this week.

       Four times as many uninvolved Palestinian civilians were killed in the final four days of the operation, B’Tselem, an Israeli information center for human rights in the occupied teritorries reported as monitored by Mi’raj News Agency (MINA).

       “The report finds that there was a significant difference between the first and the final days of the operation: of the uninvolved Palestinian fatalities, 80% were killed in the last four days of the operation,” the organization said.

       The B’Tselem reports based its findings on Operation Pillar of Defense on statements issued by the Israel Defense Forces, the Shin Bet security service, and on an internal investigation.

       The IDF killed 167 Palestinians during the operation, at least 87 of them non-combatants, the report added.

       Thirty-one of these non-combatant civilians, or 35 percent, were minors. Of these minors, 20 were under the age of 12.

       The B’Tselem reports asserted the number of Palestinians killed on each of the eight days of fighting: during each of the first four days, an average of four “non-participant” Palestinians were killed, over the next four days, the number in this category soared by more than four  an average of 17.5 per day. The report also notes that during the first days of the war, the number of Palestinian combatants who were killed was nearly twice than the number of non-combatant fatalities. In the subsequent days of the operation, this proportion was reversed. (T/P01/P03)

Mi’raj News Agency (MINA)