Of obvious greater concern were the injuries to the Israeli Bedouin population: “the conflict provided renewed evidence that vulnerable communities in Israel, particularly Bedouin villages in Israel’s southern Negev/Naqab region, many of which are not officially recognized by the Israeli government, lacked protection.”
The report also claims, “Bedouin communities in both recognized and unrecognized villages in southern Israel do not have access to shelters and the alarm system of sirens warning of oncoming projectiles from Gaza does not function in these communities.”
The reality is that many Bedouin live in homes that are scattered over an extremely wide geographic area, in much the same way as farming families in Nebraska and the Midwestern Plains. It is impossible to build a public shelter and expect anyone to reach it in time to be safe. Likewise, their homes are not built to standard updated code, nor are they equipped for the weight of a shelter.
The fact is that many Jewish Israelis also still do not have access to shelters as well, even in the biggest cities, where older buildings were built without them. It is for this reason that thousands of Be’er Sheva residents were forced to flee their homes and relocate to cities where residents volunteered to take them in until the war was over. In some areas, sirens are also either not heard, or very, very dim. In a number of cases that were documented, the sirens did not activate at all, with disastrous results.
In ‘recognized’ Bedouin towns, where new houses are built according to standard Israeli building codes just like all the other homes in the country, a “mamad” or bomb shelter is automatically built within the house. This author has seen such homes in one Bedouin village with her own eyes.
It’s unfortunate the author of this report did not take the time to research these issues thoroughly.
Amnesty also noted the difficulty in documenting human rights violations during hostilities: “Publishing information on violations by Palestinian armed groups can also be risky for local NGOs… human rights organizations and individual staff members have been threatened or attacked by Palestinian armed groups in the past… Together with Israel’s continued denial to … investigators, this means that, even though only a handful of specific incidents of Palestinian attacks launched from civilian areas were documented by sources other than the Israeli military or authorities, this should not be taken as an indication that such attacks were infrequent.”
The report also notes the Palestinian Authority – referred to as “Palestine” – is to become an official member of the International Criminal Court on April 1, 2015. As such, the Palestinian territories accept the jurisdiction of the ICC upon themselves, although there may be a legal question as to whether in fact their autonomous status within Israel is sufficient to merit that jurisdiction. But if it does, it also opens the path to an investigation of Gaza terror attacks against Israel, many of which are carried out by Hamas and thus perpetrated by a member of the Palestinian unity government.
Amnesty recognizes the risk in this, and writes:
Palestine’s accession to the ICC, which will take effect on 1 April 2015, and its submission of a declaration accepting the Court’s jurisdiction from 13 June 2014, are important steps towards justice for victims on both sides. The ICC Prosecutor opened a preliminary examination in January 2015 into the situation in Palestine. Amnesty International has urged all states to support the ICC’s exercise of jurisdiction over Palestinian territory, and to oppose any retaliation or threats against the Palestinian authorities for acceding to the Rome Statute and accepting the Court’s jurisdiction.