A/HRC/12/48 page 193 878. The Mission can see nothing at all that points to the house of Mohammed Deeb Abd al-Dayem, or the condolence tents constituting a military objective. The repeated nature of the strikes indicates that there was a deliberate attempt to kill members of the group or the entire group, but no information about the purpose of the strikes has been forthcoming from the Israeli authorities. 879. The Mission inspected the sites of the attacks and was left in no doubt that they had been entirely deliberate. There was a tent at each side of the wide road. The particular area is relatively open. 4. Legal findings 880. While international humanitarian law does not explicitly prohibit the use of flechettes in all circumstances, the principles of proportionality and precautions necessary in attack render their use illegal. Flechettes are 4-cm-long metal darts used as anti-personnel weapons that penetrate straight through human bone and can cause serious, often fatal, injuries.480 Discharged from tank shells and aircraft or UAV-launched missiles, they are fired in salvo and are therefore an area anti-personnel weapon. They are, therefore, by their nature lacking in discrimination. 881. The Mission notes that, during the condolence ceremony, flechette shells were fired in the vicinity of a large group of civilians, killing 5 and injuring more than 20. To consider the attacks indiscriminate would imply that there was a military objective underlying the attacks in the first place. The Mission has no information on which to base such a conclusion and notes the silence of the Israeli authorities on the incident. 882. The Mission therefore considers that the families participating in the condolence ceremony were civilians and taking no active part in hostilities. The attacks on the condolence tent on the morning of 4 January were entirely unjustified and unnecessary. The attacks seemed designed to kill and maim the victims directly and otherwise to terrify the people in the area rather than to pursue any genuine military objective. 883. The Mission finds that the attack on the Abd al-Dayem family condolence tents constitutes an intentional attack against the civilian population and civilian objects, wilful killing and the wilful infliction of suffering. In particular, the Mission believes that any party using a flechette missile in circumstances that are totally or predominantly civilian cannot fail to anticipate the severe and unnecessary suffering of the civilians affected. 884. Based on the facts ascertained, the Mission therefore finds there to have been violations of customary international law in respect of a deliberate attack on civilians. It considers the attack was not only an attack intended to kill but also to spread terror among the civilian population, given the nature of the weapon used. (See art. 51 (2) of Additional Protocol I.) Amnesty International, Israel/Gaza: Operation “Cast Lead”: 22 days of death and destruction (London, 2009) and B’Tselem, “Flechette shells: an illegal weapon”, available at: http://www.btselem.org/english/firearms/flechette.asp. 480