2004 Israeli operation in Rafah

Human Rights Watch recently issued a major report on house demolitions in Rafah, including a chapter devoted to an analysis of "Operation Rainbow" and other IDF actions in Rafah in May 2004. Summary is below.

Rampage in Rafah: May 2004

In May 2004, Rafah witnessed a level of destruction unprecedented in the current uprising, resulting in 298 demolished homes. After Islamic Jihad destroyed the armored personnel carrier (APC) on May 12, the IDF launched a two-day incursion to recover the soldiers’ remains. IDF tanks and helicopters also led an assault on Block O, reportedly killing fifteen Palestinians, including one fifteen-year-old. Six others were identified as combatants.11 Claiming that it came under intense fire during the entire operation, the IDF razed eighty-eight homes in Block O and neighboring Qishta area, including houses that had been separated from the buffer zone by three or four rows of homes and could not have been used to fire at the APC or the recovery teams. Towards the end of the incursion, two Israeli soldiers in Qishta were killed by Palestinian snipers.

From May 18-24, the IDF conducted a major assault called “Operation Rainbow” that penetrated deep into two areas of Rafah — Tel al-Sultan in the northwest and the Brazil and Salam neighborhoods in the east — reportedly leaving thirty-two Palestinian civilians dead, including ten people under age eighteen, as well as twelve armed men. The IDF also destroyed 166 houses. The offensive was ostensibly aimed at searching for smuggling tunnels, killing or arresting suspects, and eliminating “terrorist infrastructure.” The IDF claimed to have discovered three smuggling tunnels during the operation, though later admitted that one of these was an incomplete shaft and another was outside of Rafah and not linked to any house demolitions.

In investigating the events of May 2004 and other demolitions, Human Rights Watch documented systematic violations of international humanitarian law and gross human rights abuses by the Israeli military. During the major May incursions of May 18-24, the IDF destroyed houses, roads, and large fields extensively without evidence that the destruction was in response to absolute military needs, including in areas of Rafah far from the border. In areas of Brazil further from the border, where incursions were not expected, most of the residents were inside their homes as armored Caterpillar D9 bulldozers crashed through the walls. Bulldozers allowed residents to flee but proceeded with the destruction before they could remove their belongings. In some cases away from the border, like the Rafah zoo, the destruction took place after the IDF had secured the area, in a manner that was time-consuming, deliberate, and comprehensive, rather than in the heat of battle.

The IDF claims its forces came under attack from Palestinians using anti-tank weapons, explosives, and small arms. Based on interviews with thirty-five Rafah residents and two members of Palestinian armed groups, information provided by the IDF, public statements by Palestinian armed groups and the Israeli government, and after surveying the affected areas, Human Rights Watch believes that armed Palestinian resistance to the May 18-24 operation was light, limited, and quickly overwhelmed within the initial hours of each incursion. Both sides made tactical choices to maximize their respective advantages: the IDF limited their operations mostly to Brazil and Tel al-Sultan, where they were not expected and Palestinian armed groups laid ambushes in the densely populated heart of the original camp, where they would be more likely to engage the IDF at close quarters. The main two streets in Tel al-Sultan and Brazil are relatively wide and arranged in grid-like patterns. The Israeli government designed them in this way during the 1970s to facilitate the movement of its forces and limit cover for Palestinian gunmen. As a result, throughout the operation there was minimal direct engagement between the IDF and Palestinian armed groups. This contrasts sharply with the fierce multi-day battle in the densely populated heart of Jenin refugee camp in April 2002, which resulted in the death of fifty-two Palestinians, including twenty-seven confirmed civilians and thirteen IDF soldiers.

During the incursions into Tel al-Sultan and Brazil, the IDF employed armored Caterpillar D9 bulldozers in a manner that was indiscriminate and excessive, resulting in widespread destruction of homes, roads, and agriculture that could have been avoided:

• Houses. In Brazil, Caterpillar D9 bulldozers cleared “tank paths” inside the camp by plowing through blocks of houses as a general precaution against possible attacks with RPGs or roadside bombs, irrespective of the specific threats that international law requires. The IDF also used D9s to destroy homes near suspected smuggling tunnels and in other areas on a preventive basis, not in response to specific threats. Other house demolitions had no discernible reason.

• Road destruction. In both Tel al-Sultan and Brazil, the IDF used Caterpillar D9s to indiscriminately tear up roads, destroying water and sewage networks, and creating a significant public health risk in an already vulnerable community. In some areas, water shortages forced residents to leave their homes in search of water, putting them at risk of being shot by IDF snipers for breaking curfew. In total, the IDF destroyed fifty-one percent of Rafah’s roads, usually by dragging a blade known as the “ripper” from the back of the D9 down the middle of the road. The IDF gave various explanations for this tactic, including the need to clear paths of potential bombs (improvised explosive devices, or IEDs), to sever wires that could be used to detonate explosive devices and to prevent suicide car attacks on Israeli forces. If the IDF was truly concerned about wires and IEDs, it would have used a front mounted device. Instead they used rear-mounted rippers that afforded no protection for the D9 bulldozers or their drivers from explosive devices in the road. In addition, as a photograph in Chapter 6 taken from another incursion shows, the ripper creates a path of debris down the middle of the road, leaving side lanes intact for use by suicide car attacks. Tearing up paved roads also creates loose debris that facilitates the concealment of explosives and booby-traps.

• Razing Agricultural Land. The IDF razed two large tracts of agricultural land outside the Tel al-Sultan housing project away from the border. Such destruction after the IDF had secured the area was disproportionate to any potential military gain and had a harmful impact on an area where agricultural production plays an important role. The IDF told Human Rights Watch that military vehicles destroyed agricultural land because they had to avoid booby-traps on roads, but this does not explain why bulldozers spent more than two days systematically destroying two large fields of greenhouses.

While research focused on the extensive destruction in the Rafah camp, Human Rights Watch also documented other abuses during the incursions into Tel al-Sultan and Brazil, including unlawful killings of civilians and IDF troops coercing civilians to serve as “human shields.” Most egregiously, on March 19, an Israeli tank and helicopter opened fire on a demonstration, killing nine, including three children under age eighteen. The IDF did not claim that its troops had come under fire, only that gunmen were in the crowd; eyewitness accounts and video evidence contradict this. In response to an inquiry from Human Rights Watch, the IDF said that one those killed had been listed in its records as a “Hamas activist” but did not substantiate or even reaffirm the claim that he had been armed at the time.