Israel's war brought Gaza to brink of catastrophe: Amnesty

LONDON (AFP) - Israels recent war on Gaza brought the enclave to the brink of a catastrophe, Amnesty
International said on Thursday, also lambasting the two main Palestinian factions for human rights violations.
The massive offensive Israel launched on December 27 in response to ongoing rocket fire from the territory
brought conditions to the brink of human catastrophe, the London-based group said in its annual report.
The 22-day war killed more than 1,400 Palestinians and 13 Israelis and left large swathes of Gaza in ruins and
earned Israel widespread condemnation and charges of possible war crimes from rights groups.
Amnesty also criticised the blockade Israel imposed on Gaza in June 2007 after Hamas, a group pledged to the
destruction of the Jewish state, seized power in Gaza.
The blockade exacerbated an already dire humanitarian situation, health and sanitation problems, poverty and
malnutrition for the 1.5 million residents.
Seriously ill patients in need of medical care not available in Gaza and hundreds of students and workers
wishing to study or travel to jobs abroad were among those trapped in Gaza by the blockade.
One, Mohammed Abu Amro, a 58-year-old cancer patient, died in October after being denied a permit to leave
on security grounds. A week later, Israel granted the permission.
Before the war, some 450 Palestinians were killed and thousands of others wounded by Israeli forces in Gaza,
most of them during the first half of the year.
Meanwhile, Amnesty pointed out that by year-end, some 8,000 Palestinians remained imprisoned by Israel.
These included 300 children and 550 people held without charge or trial under so-called administrative
detention, including some held up to six years in this way.
On the Palestinian side, Amnesty took to task both Gazas Hamas rulers and Palestinian Authority forces in the
Israeli-occupied West Bank for arbitrary detentions, torture and suppression of freedom of speech.
Both the PA security forces in the West Bank and Hamas security forces and militias in Gaza arbitrarily
detained hundreds of members or sympathisers of rival factions without charge or trial and often tortured and
otherwise ill-treated detainees, the report said.
After Israel launched its offensive, Hamas forces abducted political opponents and people alleged to have
collaborated with Israel, and some were summarily killed, others beaten or shot in the legs.
A total of 23 Israeli civilians were killed in both territories in 2008 seven by fighters from Gaza and 16 others
in the West Bank and east Jerusalem.
Meanwhile, Amnesty International on Thursday launched a new campaign focused on helping people
imprisoned by poverty.
The London-based organisations chief Irene Khan said after years of helping prisoners of conscience, it was
turning its attention to people suffering human rights abuses as a result of poverty.
Poverty is as much a human rights issue as arbitrary detention, Khan said. We want to empower people living
in poverty so that they can find solutions to their problems.
The Demand Dignity campaign has three main aims: to camping to stop the forced eviction of slums, to
promote the voices of women on their demands and reproductive rights and to promote the rights of indigenous
peoples.
Khan said it was a long-term campaign, which she will launch next month with a visit to the Kibera slum in Kenya,
home to an estimated one million people.
On Thursday, Amnesty also launched its annual report on the state of human rights around the world with a
warning that the world is sitting on a powder keg of social unrest caused by the global economic slowdown.