Israel has asked the rights group Amnesty International to apologize for leveling false charges against the country’s armed forces for targeting the Gaza offices of a human rights organization.
Shortly after the building housing the Palestinian “Independent Commission for Human Rights” (ICHR) got hit by a rocket on Wednesday, Amnesty International blamed the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) for the attack.
The explosion caused partial damage to the building and one person was injured as a result, Israeli media reported.
The news website Times of Israel reported:
A rocket that hit the offices of the Palestinian Independent Commission for Human Rights in the Gaza Strip on Tuesday was reportedly fired by Palestinians inside Gaza and not launched by Israeli forces.The ICHR blamed Israel for the missile, which injured one worker and caused significant damage to the building. Amnesty International issued a condemnation of Israel, as did the US left-wing activist group Code Pink.However, the rocket, which hit the fifth floor of the office building, was fired by terrorists in Gaza — almost certainly the Palestinian Islamic Jihad group — but it fell short of hitting Israel, Haaretz reported Wednesday.PIJ pummeled Israel with hundreds of rockets Tuesday in response to the IDF targeted killing earlier in the day of Baha Abu al-Ata, a senior commander in the terror group, and his wife. The IDF responded with airstrikes on PIJ targets. The rocket barrages continued Wednesday and an IDF spokesman said the retaliatory Israeli airstrikes were carefully hitting only PIJ targets while staying away from populated areas to avoid civilian casualties. (…)Israeli sources confirmed to Haaretz that the rocket that hit the ICHR was not fired by the IDF. In addition, there was an almost total self-imposed blackout of the incident by local Palestinian media, which according to the report, is a further indication that the missile was Palestinian.
The so-called Palestinian rights group also cried foul about “Israeli war crimes” for “targeting human rights institutions in this manner.” The Far-Left group Code Pink also joined the chorus “condemning” the “attack on this important human rights organization.”
These claims have since been refuted by Israeli and foreign media outlets. The ICHR office was hit by a stray rocket intended for Israeli civilians, Reuters’ video footage showed. Fox News foreign correspondent Trey Yingst, who was at the scene in Gaza at the time of the blast, corroborate the claim. “Israel did not strike this building. A rocket misfired from Gaza. I was across the street when it happened,” Fox News correspondent said on Twitter.
Faced with mounting evidence, Amnesty International refused to retract the allegation, but admitted that “conflicting information” was “circulating about what exactly hit the ICHR office in Gaza and where the attack came from.”
The UK-based ELINT News shared Reuters’ live stream showing a rocket launched from inside Gaza hitting the ICHR building:
Amnesty International has been waging a vicious campaign against Israel, making wild allegations and calling for an “arms embargo” against the country.
“Amnesty should fire the officials who gave the false report from Gaza, and the officials in London who issued the statement of condemnation against Israel with no evidentiary basis,” executive director of watchdog group UN Watch, Hillel Neuer, demanded. He also called upon the rights group to “apologize publicly for its false reporting and baseless condemnation.”
Israel also asked Amnesty International to apologize for its misleading statements.
“Contrary to your claim, the Palestinian commission for Human Rights in Gaza was struck by the enemies of human rights – Gaza terror groups, which you [Amnesty International] repeatedly fail to condemn,” Israeli foreign ministry said.
The latest round of conflict began Tuesday after Israel killed the top commander of the Iranian-backed Palestinian terrorist group Islamic Jihad. The terror operative, Baha Abu al-Ata, was behind several recent attacks on Israel and was planning an imminent attack.
More than 300 rockets have been launched by the terror group. Israel’s Iron Dome air defense system has intercepted around 90 percent of these rockets. With central and southern Israel under rocket fire, schools have been closed in the impacted region, and over a million people have been forced to seek shelter.
The truth, they say, is the first causality of war. It’s even more so when Palestinian terrorists launch aggression against Israel. As usual, Arab-Islamic terrorist groups have teamed up with far-left Western “rights groups” in distorting the reality and smearing the Jewish state, the only democracy in the Middle East. The European Union, Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, and their ilk are all ganging up on the tiny Jewish State amid a barrage of rockets raining down on Israeli towns and cities.
Palestinian Islamic Jihad fires hundreds of rockets at Israel
[Cover image via YouTube]
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