A/HRC/4/17 page 8 10. Beit Hanoun in Northern Gaza, with a population of 40,000, was subjected to particularly vicious military action in November in the course of “Operation Autumn Clouds”. During a six-day incursion 82 Palestinians, at least half of whom were civilians (including 21 children), were killed by the IDF. More than 260 people, including 60 children, were injured and hundreds of males between the ages of 16 and 40 were arrested. Forty thousand residents were confined to their homes as a result of a curfew as Israeli tanks and bulldozers rampaged through their town, destroying 279 homes, an 850-year-old mosque, public buildings, electricity networks, schools and hospitals, levelling orchards and digging up roads, water mains and sewage networks. In April 2006, the IDF narrowed the “safety zone” for artillery shelling, allowing targeting much closer to homes and populated areas. This, together with heavy artillery fire, contributed substantially to the increase in the loss of life and damage to property. There was also evidence of the use of a new and unusual weapon in Beit Hanoun, and elsewhere in Gaza, which has resulted in an increase in amputations. This weapon is believed to be the Dense Inert Metal Explosive missile (DIME). 11. Israel’s assault on Beit Hanoun on 8 November 2006 culminated in the shelling of a home which resulted in the killing of 19 persons and wounding of 55 persons. The house, situated in a densely populated neighbourhood, was the home of the Al-Athamnah family, which lost 16 members on that fateful day. Of the 19 killed, all civilians, 7 were women and 8 children. I visited the destroyed home on 3 December and spoke to Mrs. Sa’ad Alla Moh’Al Athamnah, three of whose sons were killed and whose husband and a son were seriously wounded. Israel’s explanation that a “technical failure” in the radar system of the artillery was to blame is questionable on a number of grounds. First, 12 to 15 high explosive artillery shells were fired over a time span of 30 minutes. Secondly, the home is located close to open fields that Israel probably suspected were used to launch Qassam rockets. Thirdly, the home had been occupied for the previous three nights by IDF soldiers who made a full inventory of the occupants of the building. Unfortunately, Israel has refused to accept any international investigation into this matter. It refused to allow a Human Rights Council mandated mission which was to have been led by Archbishop Desmond Tutu, to enter Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territory and at the time of writing, has yet to respond to a resolution of the General Assembly of 17 November, adopted by 156 votes to 7, with 6 abstentions, which required the Secretary-General to send a fact-finding mission to the area. On 11 November the United States vetoed a Security Council draft resolution calling for the establishment of a fact-finding mission into the events of 8 November in Beit Hanoun. The failure of Israel to allow an international investigation into the killing of 19 persons in Beit Hanoun, or to undertake an impartial investigation of its own, is regrettable as it seems clear that the indiscriminate firing of shells into a civilian neighbourhood with no apparent military objective constituted a war crime, for which both the commanding officer and those who launched the 30-minute artillery attack should be held criminally responsible. The failure to hold anyone accountable for this atrocity illustrates the culture of impunity that prevails in the IDF. 12. Israel has justified its attack on Beit Hanoun as a defensive operation aimed at preventing the launching of Qassam rockets into Israel. It is true that over a thousand home-made rockets have been fired into civilian areas in Israel without any military target and that 2 Israelis have been killed and over 30 injured. Such actions cannot be condoned and clearly constitute a war crime. Nevertheless, Israel’s response has been grossly disproportionate and indiscriminate and resulted in the commission of multiple war crimes.