By Meredith Lee-Clark
Impunity Watch Reporter, Middle East
JERUSALEM, Israel/West Bank – Israeli officials have rejected the call to begin an independent investigation into possible war crimes and other “serious violations” of international human rights laws related to the three-week armed conflict in Gaza in December 2008 and January 2009. The establishment of such an investigation was one of the primary recommendations in the U.N. report that was released on September 15.
The report, produced by the U.N. Human Rights Council, found that both Israelis and Palestinians violated international law during the Gaza conflict. The report said that Israel targeted civilian facilities, including government buildings, hospitals, a mosque, and farms in the Gaza Strip. The report also said that Hamas, the Palestinian militant group that leads the territorial government in Gaza, was at fault for launching rocket attacks against civilian targets in southern Israel.
The report recommends that Israel conduct an independent investigation into the charges of war crimes, or alternatively, the matter should be referred to the International Criminal Court in The Hague.
Mark Regev, the spokesperson for the Israeli government, said that Israel is conducting its own investigation, whose results will be open to review by civilian courts.
“Our own internal investigations are much more serious than what is being produced by this report,” said Regev.
Richard Goldstone, the respected South African judge who headed the U.N. report, dismissed the efficacy of the Israeli investigations.
“The Israeli investigations have been done behind closed doors in secret by the military,” said Goldstone. “That’s hardly an investigation by any acceptable standard.”
Goldstone also said that while Israel has dismissed the recommendations of the report, it has not yet disputed any of the findings of fact. The report rejected Israel’s argument that the war was an act of self-defense, but rather that the war was “a deliberately disproportionate attack designed to punish, humiliate and terrorize a civilian population.”
Goldstone also rejected allegations that the report’s committee was biased.
“I deny that completely,” said Goldstone, appearing on Israeli television. “I was independent, nobody dictated any outcome…the outcome of the report which was the result [of our independent investigation.]”
Goldstone stressed that Israel was not the only faulted party, but that the Hamas rockets into Gaza “constitute war crimes, possibly crimes against humanity,” and that the Gazan security forces, under the control of Hamas, carried out extrajudicial executions and arbitrary arrests. The report called for the release of Gilad Shalit, an Israeli soldier who has been in Gazan prisons for three years.
For more information, please see:
Guardian – Israel Rejects War Crimes Findings of UN Gaza Inquiry – 16 September 2009
Jerusalem Post – ‘My Wish and Hope is for an Open Israeli Probe’ – 16 September 2009
Ma’an News Agency – UN’s Goldstone Tells Ma’an: Israel Has Yet to Deny Our Findings – 16 September 2009
NPR News – Israel Rejects U.N. Report on Gaza Conflict – 16 September 2009
New York Times – Israel Rejects Call for Gaza Inquiry – 16 September 2009
