A UNITED Nations board of inquiry investigating alleged war crimes of the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) in Gaza has produced a damning indictment. Although only a summary of the 184-page report was officially released by Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon's office in early May, it is clear that it provides compelling evidence that the IDF violated the laws of war. The board of inquiry was led by Ian Martin, former Director of Amnesty International.
During a three-week onslaught in early January termed Operation Cast Lead, the summary said, the IDF attacked a total of 53 U.N. installations, including 37 schools. The attack on the U.N.-run Jabaila School, where civilians had taken refuge, killed around 40 Palestinians.
Among other U.N. installations hit were fuel and aid depots, and the attacks continued for two hours after the U.N. had sent an SOS to the IDF to stop shelling.
Israeli Defence Force actions in Gaza, the report noted, involved "varying degrees of negligence and recklessness with regard to United Nations premises and the safety of the United Nations staff and other civilians within those premises, with consequent deaths, injuries and extensive physical damage and loss of property". The report recommended that the U.N. ask for $11 million in reparations from Israel.
Ban Ki-moon had limited the scope of the inquiry board to attacks on U.N. installations, an extremely narrow frame of reference. Other welldocumented incidents of war crimes - including the bombardment of houses, use of civilians as human shields and use of white phosphorus - were beyond the board's purview. Despite its limited scope, however, the board managed to provide detailed evidence of the IDF's human rights violations.
In response to the report, Israeli government spokesman Mark Regev said it was "fundamentally flawed". Meanwhile, Israeli politicians continue to claim that the IDF is "one of the most moral armies in the world".
The authors of the U.N.'s report, on the other hand, believed strongly that the U.N. should not shy away from apportioning blame for the widespread carnage in Gaza. According to the report's summary, the board was "deeply conscious" that Israeli attacks on U.N. installations were "among many incidents during Operation Cast Lead involving civilian victims". The board has recommended that these incidents "should be investigated as part of an impartial inquiry".
To the surprise of the international community, however, the U.N. Secretary- General announced that he had no plans for a broad-based inquiry into war crimes in Gaza, even before the Security Council had debated the report. Israeli media suggested that Ban Ki-moon bowed to the combined pressure exerted by Israel and the United States while making the decision.
A separate investigation into all human rights violations in Gaza was ordered by the U.N. Human Rights Council (HRC) in January, and members of the investigation will leave for a fact-finding mission in the region soon. It will be headed by the South African jurist Richard Goldstone.
The Israeli government, as expected, has announced that it will not cooperate with the investigation. The U.N. Secretary-General has so far not openly expressed his support for the HRC inquiry.
If the U.S. and Israel act to stall the HRC inquiry or the full public release of the U.N. board of inquiry's report, it would not be the first time. In 1996, Israel and the U.S. succeeded in preventing the publication of a U.N.-commissioned report on the IDF's shelling of a U.N. base in Qana in Lebanon that killed more than 100 civilians taking shelter there. In 2002, strong pressure from Washington and Tel Aviv prevented the U.N. Secretary-General at the time, Kofi Annan, from ordering a Security Council inquiry into the IDF's atrocities in the town of Jenin in the occupied West Bank.
John CherianCOMMents
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