A recent report by the Geneva-based Euro-Med Monitor has brought to light several such episodes in the past months amidst an intensified military offensive in the Gaza Strip by Israel, a continuation of its measures following a terrorist act last October. An episode detailed in the report occurred on Feb. 29, where a Palestinian man was deliberately crushed by a military vehicle after he was arrested. According to eyewitnesses who spoke with Euro-Med, “The man was subjected to harsh interrogation by members of the Israeli army, who bound his hands with plastic zip-tie handcuffs before running him over with a military vehicle from the bottom to the top of his body.” Witnesses said the killing occurred on the main Salah al-Din Street in the Zaytoun neighborhood, where Israeli soldiers stripped the man of his clothes, then placed him on “asphalt rather than in an adjacent sandy area” to ensure lethality as the tank crushed him. The area where the incident took place is said to have “obvious signs” that a military bulldozer or tank was present,” along with the man’s “entrails and other body parts” laying on the pavement, which had not yet decomposed. During a separate event on Jan. 23, an Israeli tank ran over members of a family while they slept in a shelter caravan in the Taiba Towers area of Khan Younis, just several miles from Rafah. A man and his oldest daughter were reportedly killed, while his wife and three children were injured. In a similar incident said to have occurred on Feb. 20, a Palestinian family survived an attack where Israeli trucks ran over their tent on the shore of the Khan Yunis Sea. Euro-Med says it has documented “Israeli tanks and bulldozers running over and crushing displaced people inside threat tents in Beit Lamia’s Kamal Adwan Hospital courtyard” last December. Several people were reportedly killed, while the corpses of people who had been previously buried in the courtyard were also crushed. The report further addresses the Israeli military's destruction of civilian assets, “particularly cars, during Israel’s ground incursions into different parts of the Gaza Strip.” The cars are said to have no military affiliation. “These crimes come alongside a public incitement campaign by Israeli officials, media figures, and settlers calling for the annihilation of Palestinians in Gaza, and are also a result of the total impunity enjoyed by the perpetrators—evident by the absence of any meaningful action being taken to hold them accountable by any party or at any level,” Euro-Med stated. “Even its claim that some of the aforementioned acts were directed towards Palestinian fighters does not release Israel from criminal responsibility, seeing as international law protects both civilians and fighters who have given up or lost all means of defense, with the Rome Statute classifying their killing or wounding as war crimes,” the group added. “The Israeli army’s deliberate and widespread destruction of Palestinian property, carried out in an irresponsible manner and without military necessity, also qualifies as a war crime under the Rome Statute.” Euro-Med is calling for the formation of an independent international investigation into the ongoing military action in Gaza. It is also requesting the United Nations’ Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions visit the Gaza Strip to investigate all killings that fall under the mandate of his office.Human rights organizations are voicing strong condemnation of the Israeli military, urging an international probe following revelations that detail a systematic practice of Israeli forces using military vehicles to run over Palestinian civilians.
