Al Mezan Center for Human Rights strongly condemns the killing of father and step mother of our colleague, Issam Hassan Younis, and the injury of multiple members of his family and the family of our colleague Yousef Abu Slaimeh.
The attack killed ten people and injured another 49; including 20 children and 14 women.
During the past two days, the Israeli occupation forces (IOF) escalated its attacks on the Gaza Strip, especially direct attacks on houses.
Al Mezan notes that many of the IOF attacks used excessively heavy bombs and missiles that spread destruction of homes and death among civilians in the targeted areas.
This type of attacks represent flagrant violation of the principle of proportionality, which applies to every single armed attack.
Disproportionate armed attacks are grave breaches of international humanitarian law (IHL) that amount to war crimes and must be investigated and prosecuted.
At approximately 2:30 am today, Thursday 21 August 2104, IOF aircraft fired nine heavy missiles at the house of Nasser Kellab, which is adjacent to the houses of the Younis family and the Abu Slaimeh family in the area of Tel As Sultan in the west of the town or Rafah, south of the Gaza Strip.
Among the casualties were Mr Hassan Younis; a retired education veteran, aged 75, and his wife Amal Ibrahim Younis-Al Bilbisi, 53.
Mr Hassan Younis is the father of Al Mezan's director, Issam Younis.
Two of Issam's sisters-in-law; Hadeel, 37, and Seham, 42; two of his nephews, Hassan, 29, and Ahmed, two months; and two of his nieces, Seba, 4, and Reema, 3; were also injured.
The house of our colleague, Yousef Abu Slaimeh, also sustained severe damages and 17 of his family members were injured; including his parents Fatihiyya and Abdel Fattah; his wife Hanan, 34; his four children Yasmeen, 12, Hassan, 10, Saja, 7, and Sabah, 4 months; his brother Mohammed, 38, and his wife Ghada, 36; his brother Ahmed, 34, and his wife Heba, 29; and his brother Ibrahim, 32, and his wife Yasmeen, 29; and his sister-in-law Falasteen, 26, and his nephews Huthaifa,1, and Baraa', 13; and his niece Israa', 8.
Another 31 people were injured in this attack, including 13 children and 10 women.
Al Mezan's family expresses our deep sadness and shock by this new loss of family members of Mr Issam Younis.
We offer our condolences to his family and our hopes for them and to our colleague Yousef that those injured from their families will have speedy recovery.
Al Mezan also expresses the strongest condemnation of the IOF crime, which comes in a context of increasing similar war crimes in the form of directing attacks to civilian targets.
Many of IOF's attacks employ excessively heavy munitions in densely populated areas and spread excessive destruction of property and killing and injury of civilians, which violate the principle of proportionality and represent serious violations of IHL.
Such attacks testify to Israel's flagrant disregard of the applicable IHL principles and to the lives of the civilian population of the Gaza Strip.
Al Mezan insists that this crime, along with hundreds of other crimes including the killing of our colleague Anwar Al Za'aneen, be promptly investigated and prosecuted as per the established standards of international law.
Al Mezan also reiterates its deploring of the stance of the international community, which has failed to take effective action to ensure Israel's full compliance by the rules of international law.
This failure has only encouraged more and more IOF grave breaches of IHL, which Palestinian civilians have paid for with their lives.
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