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Gaza civilians in firing line

Peter Beaumont

Reduction of Israeli artillery safety margin puts innocents in danger

— PHOTO: AP

HIGHLIGHTING ATROCITY: Egyptians protest against an Israeli attack in the Gaza town of Beit Hanoun that killed 19 civilians on Wednesday, during a demonstration organised by the Muslim Brotherhood in Alexandria on Sunday.

Israeli military commanders drastically reduced the safety margins that separate artillery targets from the built-up civilian areas of Gaza earlier this year, despite being warned that the new policy risked increasing Palestinian civilian deaths and injuries.

The warning, delivered in Israel's High Court by six human rights groups, came after the Israeli Defence Force reduced the so-called "safety range" in Gaza from a 300-metre separation from built-up areas to just 100 metres — within the kill radius of its 155mm high-explosive shells, generally regarded as being between 50 and 150 metres.

Disclosure of the new shelling policy, which went largely unnoticed at the time, has emerged in international outcry over the latest artillery incident by Israeli gunners shelling Gaza — the killing of 19 members of an extended family in the Gaza town of Beit Hanoun.

Shelling continues

The revelation follows reports that the shelling of Gaza has continued despite the recent recognition by senior Israeli military officers, including the head of the IDF's Southern Command, that indirect artillery fire (firing without seeing the target) was largely pointless in countering Palestinian rocket fire. According to Human Rights Watch, since September 2005 Israel has fired about 15,000 rounds at Gaza while Palestinian militants have fired around 1,700 back.

The latest disclosures come as an Arab-backed motion condemning Israel's Gaza offensive was being circulated for debate at the U.N. Security Council and amid widening demonstrations in capitals of West Asia.

The IDF has claimed a fault in the artillery radar system's co-ordinates for the missiles changed the margin of error from 25 to 200 metres, but that still does not explain why it waited until the following day to return fire to a general area.

As well as provoking international concern, the Beit Hanoun killings have pushed into the open deep misgivings within the Israeli military itself over its use of artillery and the capabilities of Israeli gunners — both in Gaza, and in the recent war in Lebanon, as an effective response to missile fire. —

© Guardian Newspapers Limited 2006

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