London – Ma’an – Amnesty International announced that 3 Israeli raids on the central and southern Gaza Strip last April led to the death of 44 civilians, including 32 children, and called on the International Criminal Court to investigate war crimes.

The organization stated that these raids took place on April 16 in the Maghazi refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip, and on April 19 and 20 in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip.

Amnesty International official Erika Guevara Rosas said in a statement: ‘These devastating strikes destroyed families and claimed the lives of 32 children,’ stressing that the organization’s investigation provides ‘basic evidence indicating unlawful attacks attributed to the Israeli army.’

Amnesty International interviewed 17 survivors and witnesses, visited a hospital where the wounded were being treated and took photographs of shrapnel.

She added that in the three cases, ‘the organization did not find any evidence of the presence of military targets in or around the sites targeted
by the Israeli army,’ noting that it has not yet received responses to its questions from the Israeli army.

According to the organization, the April 16 raid on Al-Maghazi targeted a street where children were playing table football, resulting in the martyrdom of 10 of them, aged between 4 and 15 years, and 5 men.

In Rafah, on April 19, an air bomb hit the house of Abu Radwan, a retired employee, killing 9 family members, including 6 children, according to the organization.

On April 20, a raid destroyed the Abdel-Al family’s home in eastern Rafah, killing 20 people, including 16 children and 4 women, and wounding two other children.

‘The International Criminal Court must open a war crimes investigation’ into these three strikes, Amnesty International wrote.

Source: Maan News Agency