Palestinian Center for Human Rights 5 February 2006
Palestinians inspect the wreckage of a car hit during an Israeli missile strike in Gaza City February 5, 2006. (MAANnews/Wesam Saleh)
On Sunday morning, 5 February 2006, Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) extra-judicially executed three members of the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, the military wing of the Fatah movement. IOF aircrafts attacked a car, in which two of the victims were traveling towards the hospital. They were evacuating a person who had been wounded, when IOF aircrafts attacked a sports club in the Tal al-Hawa neighborhood in the south of Gaza City.
An IOF spokesman claimed that IOF targeted three activists who were holding a meeting in the sports club and chased a number of activists while they were on their way to the hospital. The IOF spokesman vowed that the IOF would continue to pursue those launching locally made rockets at Israel.
According to investigations conducted by PCHR, at approximately 00:30 on Sunday, 5 February 2006, an IOF aircraft launched three missiles at the al-Shams sports club, belonging to the Fatah movement, in the densely populated Tal al-Hawa neighborhood in the south of Gaza City. The club was totally destroyed and one of its members, 30-year-old Hani Tal’at al-Qayed, was seriously wounded.
A number of members of the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, the military wing of the Fatah movement, had just finished a meeting inside the club and left the building when the attack occurred. Following the attack, two members of the club – Nasser Ramadan Marshoud, 28, and Yassin Jamal Barghout, 25 – offered help to al-Qayed. They evacuated him in a civilian car to the hospital. When the car arrived at the headquarters of the Preventive Security Service in the Tal al-Hawa neighborhood, while it was on its way to the hospital, an IOF aircraft launched a missile at the car. The car was destroyed and the three young men were instantly killed.
In addition, 8 Palestinians, including two members of the Preventive Security Service, were wounded by shrapnel. According to medical sources two of the wounded are in a serious condition.
PCHR strongly condemns this latest crime and asserts that such crimes by IOF increase tension and threaten the lives of Palestinian civilians. PCHR calls upon the international community to meet its responsibilities and calls particularly upon the High Contracting Parties to the Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949 to fulfill their obligations under the Convention to ensure protection for Palestinian civilians in the Occupied Palestinian Territories.
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