AMNESTY International calls today for the International Criminal Court to investigate as war crimes three Israeli air raids that killed 44 Palestinian civilians, including 32 children, last month.

The liberal charity publishes an investigation into the bombings — one on al-Maghazi refugee camp in central Gaza on April 16, and two on Rafah on April 19 and 20 — and concludes that there is no evidence of any military targets near any of them, “raising serious concerns that the attacks amount to direct attacks on civilians and civilian objects, which are war crimes...

“Even if Israeli forces had intended to target legitimate military objectives in the vicinity of the three attacks, the evidence indicates that the attacks did not distinguish between military objectives and civilian objects and as such would be indiscriminate. Indiscriminate attacks that kill or injure civilians, or destroy or damage civilian objects, are war crimes,” it charges.

The al-Maghazi refugee camp bombing killed 10 children aged between four and 15, some of whom had been playing table football in the street, as well as five adults.

Ten-year-old Rajaa Radwan told Amnesty he had been playing table football with friends but had headed home just before the bombing. “I was lucky that I was not injured, but my friends Raghad and Shahd were both killed.”

Amnesty examined munition fragments identifying the bomb as an MPR-500, a 500lbs Israeli-built bomb with some US components.

Its study involved interviewing 17 survivors and witnesses, surveying the bomb sites and reviewing its own and others’ photographs and video footage.