Middle East News

Human rights group accused Palestinian militants of "war crimes"

Jun 13, 2007, 6:55 GMT

Gaza City/New York - A New York-based human rights group overnight Wednesday accused Palestinian armed groups of having committed 'war crimes' in fighting against each other over the past days. Both Fatah and Hamas military forces have 'summarily executed captives, killed people not involved in hostilities and engaged in gunbattles with one another inside and near Palestinian hospitals,' a statement issued by Human Rights Watch said. On Saturday, armed Palestinians from the Islamic Jihad and the Fatah-affiliated al-Aqsa Martyrs brigades also used a white jeep with the letters TV taped on it to attack an Israeli military position on the border with Gaza. On Sunday, Hamas militants captured a cook for Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas' Presidential Guard and threw him to his death from a 15-storey Gaza City high-rise. Retaliating, Fatah militants raided a Gaza City house, abducted a Hamas mosque preacher and shot him dead after. 'These attacks by both Hamas and Fatah constitute brutal assaults on the most fundamental humanitarian principles,' the group's Middle East director, Sarah Leah Whitson. 'The murder of civilians not engaged in hostilities and the wilful killing of captives are war crimes, pure and simple,' she said. © 2007 dpa - Deutsche Presse-Agentur

Middle East News

Human rights group accused Palestinian militants of "war crimes"

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