‘Serious violations’ in Gaza war, UN says
Investigators say both Israel and Palestinians may have committed war crimes
JERUSALEM— A UN investigation found “serious violations of international humanitarian law” that “may amount to war crimes” by both Israel and Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip during their battle last summer, according to a report released Monday in Geneva.
The report, written by a two-member independent commission of inquiry and submitted to the UN Human Rights Council, said that “impunity prevails across the board” regarding the actions of Israeli forces in Gaza, and it called on Israel to “break with its recent lamentable track record in holding wrongdoers accountable.”
As for Palestinian armed groups, the commission cited the “inherently indiscriminate nature” of rockets and mortars fired at Israeli civilians, condemned the killing of people suspected of being collaborators, and said Palestinian authorities had “consistently failed” to bring violators of international law to justice.
“Comprehensive and effective accountability mechanisms for violations allegedly committed by Israel or Palestinian actors will be a key deciding factor of whether Palestinians or Israelis are to be spared yet another round of hostilities and spikes in violations of international law,” the report said.
The report is expected to serve as a road map for the inquiry into possible war crimes already underway by the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court.
Israel last week published an extensive report arguing that its soldiers and commanders adhered to all international laws and placing the bulk of the blame for Palestinian civilian deaths on Hamas, the Islamist group that controls Gaza and led the fight against Israel.
“We are not here to deliver a guilty verdict with respect to any party,” said Mary McGowan Davis, who led the inquiry, at a news conference in Geneva.
She emphasized that the commis- sion was not a judicial process but had collected testimony “in a scrupulously objective fashion” that could lay the basis for a “more thorough investigation” of what happened in Gaza and in the West Bank.
The report, which will be discussed by the Human Rights Council this month, questioned why Israel’s political and military leadership had not changed its course of action despite considerable information about civilian deaths. That “raises questions about potential violations of international humanitarian law by these officials, which may amount to war crimes,” it said.
The commission said that “the scale of the devastation was unprecedented” in Gaza, where it counted 2,251 Palestinian deaths and 18,000 homes destroyed, and also cited “immense distress and disruption” to Israeli civilians, along with $25 million in civilian property damage.