With each passing day, there is growing evidence that Israeli troops are functioning as mobile mass execution parties in Gaza.
On Thursday, Al Jazeera published video interviews of residents of an apartment building in Gaza City, where residents said Israeli troops systematically tortured and executed 15 men.
Heba Selem, a witness, stated: “They stripped them of their clothes except for their boxers and forced them to lay on their stomachs on the floor. They started to execute the men on the floor. They didn’t leave anyone. I swear to God, they turned the entire place into a bloodbath.
“It’s a day you can’t forget, I can’t forget it.” Her husband was killed during the execution.
“After they tortured my husband in front of us and they broke his jaw, and beat up his face, they beat him until his arms were bleeding. They stripped all the men, tortured them, and humiliated them, then executed them. That all happened while we watched.”
Al Jazeera quoted William Schabas, professor of international law at Middlesex University, as saying the footage would constitute evidence of war crimes at the International Criminal Court. “I should add that it’s not really important to demonstrate that they’re civilians. Summary executions even of fighters, even of combatants is a war crime,” he told the news outlet.
In a subsequent interview, Muhammad Shehada, chief of programs and communications of the Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor, told Al Jazeera that there is a pattern of “systematic” killing in Gaza.
“In at least 13 of field executions, we corroborated that it was arbitrary on the part of the Israeli forces,” he said, adding: “We believe that the IDF [Israel Defense Forces] has dropped restraint in its conduct in Gaza, enabling soldiers to confidently conduct these atrocities, without fear of accountability, which is why we’re seeing them in multiple neighborhoods and parts of the Gaza Strip.”