On 5 February 2008, the Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) killed seven police officers, raising the number of Palestinians killed by the IOF in the Gaza Strip to ten people since the beginning of February, and to 89 since the beginning of 2008.
This indicates a large escalation in the IOF's aggression against the Gaza Strip.
According to Al Mezan field investigations, at approximately 3:40pm, on 5 February 2008, the IOF used a ground-to-ground missile to shell a police station in Bani Suheiyla town east of the southern Gaza Strip town of Khan Younis.
As a result, seven policemen were killed.
They arrived at Nasser Hospital, their bodies blown into pieces.
They were identified as: 22-year-old Ahmed Ismail Mesbeh; 21-year-old Osama Ali Abu Sa'ada; 20-year-old Muhammad Mousa Abu Sa'ada; 25-year-old Mutaz Abdul Razek Abu Shahla; 31-year-old Abdel Nasser Ibrahim Abu Naser; 22-year-old Wafi Hamad Abu Yusuf; and, 22-year-old Rafat Ahmed Qudeh.
Another policeman, 21-year-old Muhammad Zaki Al Derdesi, was reported to have sustained moderate injury in the incident.
In another attack, the IOF assassinated 39-year-old Amer Karmout, a leader of the Popular Resistance Committees in northern Gaza.
Karmout was walking near Abu Obeida Al Jarrah Secondary School in Beit Lahiya town when, at approximately 12:55pm on 4 February 2008, an IOF drone shelled him with one missile.
He was taken to a nearby hospital where he died two hours later.
A passerby, 24-year-old Ismail Ghabin, was hit by shrapnel, and sustained moderate wounds to his right hand.
Al Mezan Center for Human Rights expresses its strong condemnation of the escalating attacks committed by the IOF in the Gaza Strip.
In carrying out these attacks, the IOF commits grave breaches of the rules of International Humanitarian Law (IHL) by failing to uphold their obligation to ensure distinction between military and civilian targets and refrain from employing excessive force.
The deliberate shelling of a police station, in which the officers were not participating in any hostilities, demonstrates such disregard of IHL.
Additionally, the IOF continue to execute deliberate extra-legal assassinations in the Gaza Strip.
Al Mezan views that the IOF's security claims cannot justify its perpetration of breaching IHL.
Al Mezan warns that the consequences of the international community's continued silence towards these breaches of IHL will encourage the IOF to escalate their aggression against the Strip.
Al Mezan calls on the international community to act swiftly and effectively in order to uphold their legal and moral duty towards the civilian population in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT) and bring to an end the escalating Israeli breaches of IHL.
The international community is also called on to provide protection for civilians in the OPT and end the siege of civilians in the Gaza Strip that affect severely their urgent humanitarian needs.
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