INVESTIGATORS mandated by the United Nations have reported that Israel did commit serious war crimes against an unarmed civilian population in the 22-day-long military assault on the Gaza Strip.
The U.N. Human Rights Council, in a report released in the third week of March, has concluded that Israel violated a range of fundamental human rights, including the targeting of civilians and the use of children as human shields. The council has called for the immediate lifting of the Israeli blockade of Gaza which disallows the supply of desperately needed humanitarian aid. It also called for an international investigation into the Israeli assault.
Radhika Coomaraswamy, the U.N. Secretary-Generals Special Representative for Children and Armed Conflict, states in her report, which forms part of the larger U.N. report, that civilian targets, particularly homes and their occupants, seem to have taken the brunt of the attacks, but schools and medical facilities have also been hit.
She cites one case in which Israeli soldiers shot a father after summoning him out of his house. They then turned their fire on the occupants of the house, killing a son and wounding the mother and three other siblings. She highlights another incident in Tal-al-Hawa town, where Israeli soldiers forced an 11-year-old boy to act as a human shield for several hours.
Other U.N. investigators, who included specialists on the right to health, food, housing and education, and violence against women, give similar reports citing the excessive use of force by the Israeli Defence Force (IDF) during its assault from December 27 to January 17.
The report by Richard Falk, the noted expert on international law and the U.Ns Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in the Occupied Territories, concludes that Israel subjected unarmed civilians in Gaza to an inhuman form of warfare that kills, maims and inflicts mental harm.
He describes the 22-day bombardment as a massive assault on a densely populated urbanised setting. More than 1,400 Palestinians were killed and 100,000 people have been left homeless. Two months after the assault, they are still living in flimsy tents, braving the elements.
Falk in his report calls for an independent experts group to probe possible war crimes in Gaza and suggests that the U.N. Security Council set up an ad hoc criminal tribunal to establish accountability for such crimes. Falk emphasises that Israels military offensive in Gaza would seem to constitute a war crime of the greatest magnitude under international law. Israel is not a signatory to the Rome Treaty establishing the International Criminal Court.
Falk points out that the Geneva Convention requires armies at war to distinguish between military targets and civilians. Israel claims that in a densely populated place such as Gaza it was difficult to distinguish between civilian and military targets. Falk says in his report that if it was really the case, then launching the attacks is inherently unlawful. Falk, like Radhika Coomaraswamy, reports that Israel targeted schools, mosques and ambulances and used prohibited weapons, including white phosphorus, in its military offensive.
Falk confirms that it was Israel that broke the truce with Hamas and should therefore not claim the right of self-defence. According to his report, the war on Gaza was a crime against peace. This was the principle charge against the Nazi leadership at the historic Nuremberg trials.
The IDFs claim that it observed discipline and high moral standards during the military offensive has been rebutted by Israeli soldiers themselves. Accounts by IDF soldiers who were on the ground have backed up reports of atrocities against the civilian populace. Their testimonies have been widely reported in the Israeli media.
A testimony by an Infantry squad leader, reported in the Haaretz newspaper, graphically describes an incident in which an Israeli sharpshooter shot a Palestinian mother and her two young children in cold blood. Another Haaretz report was about Israeli soldiers describing the ransacking and destruction of civilian property by the IDF in Gaza.
Israeli soldiers, who have had the courage and the conscience to speak out, have said that the general atmosphere among the troops was that the lives of Palestinians were very, very less important than the lives of our soldiers.
An Israeli squadron leader in his testimony said that the orders from above was to enter a house, with an armoured vehicle, to break the door down and starting shooting inside I call it murder. Higher ups said that it is permissible because everyone left in Gaza City is culpable because they didnt run away. I dont really understand. On the one hand they have really no place to flee to, but on the other hand, they are telling us that they hadnt fled, so it is their fault. The squadron leader also recounted how IDF soldiers routinely scrawled anti-Arab graffiti on the walls of Palestinian homes.
The Israeli government has reluctantly ordered an inquiry. This happened only after Haaretz first published the stories in late March, three weeks after the testimonies had reached the government. Meanwhile, Ehud Barak, the Defence Minister, continues to insist that the Israeli army is the most moral army in the world. A report in the Israeli media revealed that the IDF had approved of its soldiers wearing T-shirts with racist slogans against Arabs.
A T-shirt for infantry snipers carries the slogan Better use Durex (a brand of condoms) next to a picture of a dead Palestinian baby and his weeping mother. Another T-shirt, sported by an Israeli sharpshooter, shows the picture of a pregnant Palestinian woman with a bulls-eye superimposed on her belly. The slogan on the shirt was: One shot, 2 kills. The pictures of the soldiers wearing these shirts have been published worldwide.
The Guardian released three documentary films on the carnage in Gaza on March 22. The films, by Clancy Chassay, provide more graphic evidence on the atrocities the IDF committed against civilians. The footage shows Palestinian teenagers being used as human shields, white phosphorus being deployed against hospitals and schools, and drones being used in the indiscriminate targeting of civilians, including women and children. One family, the Samunis, lost 29 members after Israeli soldiers forced them into a building, which they then targeted.
In the last week of March, the New York-based Human Rights Watch (HRW) added its voice to the rising international demands that Israel be investigated for war crimes.
A report released by the HRW says that Israel fired munitions deliberately or recklessly over densely populated areas. The HRW also calls for international investigations into Israels use of white phosphorus during the offensive. The report points out that the chemical ignites on contact with oxygen and can burn away flesh from the bone.
The report emphasises that the use of white phosphorus was in violation of the laws of war. The HRW has urged the U.N. to conduct speedy investigations on the use of white phosphorus and asked the U.S. to stop all military aid to Israel.
Dr. Nassif Abu Shaaban, working in Gazas Shifa Hospital, told Al Jazeera that many bodies with burns were brought in. Complete families came to us, burned to death, said Shabaan. Israel initially denied using white phosphorus but in the face of overwhelming evidence the IDF said that it would conduct an internal investigation into the improper use of the chemical.
Gen. Gabi Ashkenazi, the IDFs Chief of Staff, has said that his moral army would never intentionally harm Palestinian civilians. Amira Haas, the Haaretz correspondent who has been reporting from the occupied territories for years, wrote in the third week of March that one of the rules of Israeli military engagement during the Gaza assault was Open fire also upon rescue.
According to her report, a handwritten note in Hebrew detailing this instruction was found in a house in Gaza that was occupied by the IDF during Operation Cast Lead. Many reports during the military operation described IDF soldiers shooting at Palestinian and Red Cross rescuers. As a result, many of the injured civilians and the dead could not be evacuated. Hundreds of Palestinians are reported to have bled to death for lack of medical attention. Bodies lay unattended for up to two weeks in Gaza.
Only the Barack Obama administration has seen it fit to jump to Israels defence. The U.S. State Departments spokesperson, echoing the views of the Israeli government, has characterised Falks report as biased. At the height of the war, the U.S. abstained from voting on the resolution calling for an immediate and durable ceasefire and the withdrawal of Israeli troops from Gaza. But the George W. Bush administration had no compunctions about the bloodletting by the Israeli forces. Much of the weaponry for the IDF was any way of American origin, paid for by the American taxpayer.
However, Israel seems to have been finally put on notice by the international community. A group of 16 judges and legal luminaries most of them former members of war crimes tribunals formed to try those responsible for crimes against humanity in Rwanda, East Timor and Yugoslavia have written an open letter, Find the Truth about the Gaza War, to the U.N. Secretary-General and the Security Council. It urges the formation of an international commission to investigate the violation of international law by both sides. The judges declared that the events in Gaza have shocked us to the core.
The letter demands that the proposed commission provide recommendations as to the appropriate prosecution of those responsible for gross violation of the law in Gaza.
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