Hamas's Civilian Death Strategy

[shira]

44. Breaking the Silence acknowledges booby-trapped homes

From the Goldstone Report:

462. The Mission, however, recalls the allegations levelled in the reports that it has reviewed. The Government of Israel alleges that Hamas planted booby traps in "homes, roads, schools and
even entire neighbourhoods". It adds, "in essence, the Hamas strategy was to transform the urban
areas of the Gaza Strip into a massive death trap for IDF forces, in gross disregard for the safety
of the civilian population " 317 The Mission notes that the existence of booby-trapped houses is
mentioned in testimonies of Israeli soldiers collected by [font color = "red"]Breaking the Silence. [/font]One soldier recounts witnessing the detonation of a powerful explosion inside a house as a bulldozer
approached it. A second soldier stated "many explosive charges were found, they also blew up,
no one was hurt. Tank Corps or Corps of Engineers units blew them up. Usually they did not
explode because most of the ones we found were wired and had to be detonated, but whoever
was supposed to detonate them had run off. It was live, however, ready. . ,". 318 Also the reports
published by Palestinian armed groups, on which the submission to the Mission on the tactics of
Palestinian combatants by the Jerusalem Centre for Public Affairs is based, suggest that booby-
trapped civilian houses were a frequently used tactic. 319 According to the Israeli Government,
"because roads and buildings were often mined, IDF forces had to target them to protect
themselves". 320

https://archive.org/stream/GoldstoneReport_456/GoldstoneReport_djvu.txt