News- Middle East: An international investigation has revealed that Israeli snipers, born in the United States and Germany, shot dead four members of a Palestinian family in Gaza in a single day.

The investigation, published by The Guardian, traced the killings of the Doghmosh family in the Tal al-Hawa neighborhood in Gaza City on November 2, 2023.

Investigators found that on that day, brothers Mohammed, 26, and Salem Doghmosh, 19, were killed by sniper fire.

Their father, Montasser, 51, was fatally injured while trying to recover their bodies. Hours later, a cousin, 47-year-old Mohammed Farid, was also shot dead. Two other relatives attempting rescues were severely wounded, it said.

The video of Salem’s killing, and footage of other attacks on unarmed Palestinians, was posted online five months after his death.

Raab later said he and another sniper carried out three of those killings, in an interview carried out under deceptive circumstances by a team of journalists and investigators.

He said he deliberately shot Salem, who was unarmed, simply for trying to recover his brother’s body.

The massacre was carried out by a sniper team, who called themselves refaim, or ghost, which included Daniel Raab, a former college basketball player from Naperville, Illinois, and Daniel Graetz, who grew up in Munich, Germany.

“They just kept on coming to try and take these bodies,” he said in a recorded interview later published online.

Investigators traced the snipers’ position to a six-storey building overlooking the site. Graffiti and videos uploaded by soldiers celebrating such massacres confirmed the team’s presence there.

When a Palestinian journalist involved in the investigation visited the buildings, he found fresh traces of the snipers — graffiti of the number 9 adorned with devil’s horns and a tail, the squad’s unofficial logo.

Recovery of dead bodies protected under international law

International law experts say the recovery of dead bodies is protected under international law.

The Israeli military’s own regulations also stipulate that people collecting bodies are not legitimate targets, according to former soldiers and Asa Kasher, who co-authored the regime’s military’s ethics code

“If you see someone recovering a body or helping a wounded person, that’s a rescue operation, it should be respected,” said Asa Kasher. “Someone like that should not be shot.”

Tom Dannenbaum, professor of international law at Stanford, also said, “The available evidence points to a war crime.”

The investigation indicates, however, that the Doghmosh family’s ordeal was not an isolated incident. At least six unarmed civilians were shot on that street within hours.

When asked how his squad decided whether to shoot unarmed Palestinians, Raab said, “It's a question of distance. There is a line that we define. They don’t know where this line is, but we do.”

Citing testimony from former Israeli soldiers, the investigation found that the regime’s forces routinely enforce invisible “kill zones” in Gaza, where any man of “military age” crossing an unseen line is treated as a target, regardless of civilian status.

They said establishing an invisible “security perimeter” then shooting civilians who cross it has become common practice in Gaza.

Human rights groups have condemned the mass killing of civilians, carried out with the help of foreign-born soldiers in Israel’s military, saying it amounts to genocide.

By the end of their Gaza deployment, Raab acknowledged that his team had killed more than 100 people.

Source: Press TV