A United Nations commission of inquiry has confirmed Israel committed ‘war crimes’ during the 2014 aggression against the Gaza Strip last summer.
The United Nations Independent Commission of Inquiry into the 2014 Gaza conflict issued a press statement on the UN Human Rights website, saying it has gathered ‘substantial information pointing to the possible committing of war crimes by Israel.
The commission is scheduled to formally present its report to the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva on 29 June.
The chair of the commission, Justice Mary McGowan Davis, described the destruction in Gaza as ‘unprecedented’ which ‘will impact generations to come.’
The commission reports, ‘The 2014 hostilities saw a huge increase in firepower used in Gaza, with more than 6,000 airstrikes by Israel and approximately 50,000 tank and artillery shells fired. In the 51 day operation, 1,462 Palestinian civilians were killed, a third of them children.’
Meanwhile, ‘Palestinian armed groups fired 4,881 rockets and 1,753 mortars towards Israel in July and August 2014, killing six civilians and injuring 1,600.’
While ‘hundreds of Palestinian civilians were killed in their own homes’ the report continues, the injuries on the Israeli side were ‘mostly psychological’.
Palestinian survivors provided graphic testimony describing air strikes that reduced buildings to piles of dust and rubble in seconds.
Following an attack in Khan Younis on 26 July that killed 19 of his relatives, a member of the al-Najjar family said, ‘I woke up . . . in the hospital, and I later learned that my sister, mother and my children had all died.
‘We all died that day even those who survived,’ he said.
The report adds that at least 142 families lost three or more members in attacks on residential buildings, during the summer of 2014, resulting in 742 deaths.
It goes on: ‘The fact that Israel did not revise its practice of air-strikes, even after their dire effects on civilians became apparent, raises the question of whether this was part of a broader policy which was at least tacitly approved at the highest level of government.’
It also expresses concern ‘about Israel’s extensive use of weapons with a wide kill and injury radius; though not illegal, their use in densely populated areas is highly likely to kill combatants and civilians indiscriminately.’
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Regarding the pattern whereby the Israeli army issues warnings to people to leave a neighbourhood and then automatically considers anyone remaining to be a fighter, the commission said, ‘This practice makes attacks on civilians highly likely.’
It adds, ‘During the Israeli ground incursion into Gaza that began in mid-July 2014, hundreds of people were killed and thousands of homes destroyed or damaged.’
A witness in Rafah, where the Israeli army launched a major operation in early August after they believed one of their soldiers had been captured, said: ‘There was an explosion about every ten seconds.’
‘When the safety of an Israeli soldier is at stake, all the rules seem to be disregarded,’ commented Justice Davis.
While Palestinian witnesses spoke of murder and losing entire families, Israeli witnesses living near Gaza spoke of being disturbed by seeing the bombing from their sitting room windows and the struggle to reach shelters in time with their children when the sirens alerted them to incoming rockets.
As for the ‘war crimes’ committed by armed Palestinian groups, the report said: ‘the indiscriminate firing of thousands of rockets and mortars at Israel appeared to have the intention of spreading terror among civilians there.’
The report also said that the Israeli military discovered 14 tunnels extending from Gaza into Israel that were used to attack soldiers during this period.
Even though the tunnels targeted only soldiers who were taking part in the illegal siege and oppression of Gaza’s unarmed and helpless civilians, the report concluded that ‘the idea of the tunnels traumatised Israeli civilians who feared they could be attacked at any moment by gunmen bursting out of the ground.’
The war crimes committed by Israel didn’t end at Gaza’s borders. The commission reported on 27 Palestinians who were killed and 3,020 injured between June and August 2014.
Concerned about the increasing use of live ammunition for crowd control by the Israeli Security Forces, which raises the likelihood of death or serious injury, the commission says: ‘The number killed in these three months was equivalent to the total for the whole of 2013.’
‘Impunity prevails across the board for violations allegedly committed by Israeli forces, both in Gaza and the West Bank.
‘Israel must break with its lamentable track record in holding wrong-doers accountable,’ said the commissioners.
The commission was also disturbed by Israel’s decision to close its criminal investigation into the case of the heinous killing of four children, who were playing football on the beach in Gaza on 16 July 2014.
It found that international journalists and many Palestinian eyewitnesses were not interviewed by the Israeli authorities, raising questions about the ‘thoroughness of their investigation’.
The commission was appointed by the UN Human Rights Council in September 2014 to investigate all violations of international humanitarian law and international human rights law in the context of the military operations conducted last summer.
The commission comprises Justice Mary McGowan Davis (United States) and Dr Doudou Diene (Senegal).
The Israeli authorities have ignored repeated requests by the commission for information and direct access to Israel and to the Occupied Palestinian Territory.
However, it obtained harrowing first hand testimony by means of Skype, VTC and telephone interviews.
It also conducted face-to-face interviews with victims and witnesses from the West Bank during two visits to Jordan and spoke to victims and witnesses from Israel who travelled to Geneva. The commission conducted more than 280 confidential interviews and received some 500 written submissions.
And it calls on all countries to ‘actively support the work of the International Criminal Court in relation to the Occupied Palestinian Territory.’
Elsewhere in south Hebron last Monday, the Israeli authorities notified a local resident of Masafer Yatta, south of Hebron, that they would demolish his family home.
Coordinator of the Anti-Settlement Committee in Hebron, Rateb Jabour, said an Israeli army unit broke into the area and handed local resident Belal Shamasti a notice informing him of their intention to demolish his house, where ten members of his family including children live, under the pretext of construction without a permit.
The neighbourhood, which relies heavily on animal husbandry as the main source of livelihood, has been a frequent target of Israeli assaults.
Issuance of construction permits for Palestinians living in Area C, which is under full Israeli administrative and military control, is strictly limited, forcing Palestinians residing in such areas to embark on construction without obtaining a permit.
According to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), between December 30, 2014 and January 12, 2015, the Israeli authorities demolished 27 Palestinian buildings in Area C of the West Bank, and five in East Jerusalem, in addition to two self demolition incidents, due to lack of Israeli-issued building permits.
Meanwhile, Freedom Flotilla III, a third initiative organised by international pro-Palestine activists to break Israel’s eight-years blockade of the Gaza Strip, is expected to set off from Greece to the coastal enclave within hours, said Isam Yousef, coordinator of the Miles of Smiles convoys early on Monday.
Former Tunisian president Moncef Marzouki, as well as athletes, academicians, parliamentarians of different levels, diplomats, journalists and a Catholic nun, are among the activists on board of the flotilla.
The first flotilla, which set sail on May 31, 2010, was attacked by Israeli forces who boarded it from speedboats and helicopters and killed nine activists, all of whom were Turkish.
The Gaza Strip has been under a tight Israeli naval, land, and aerial blockade for eight years, since the Hamas faction won the 2006 parliamentary elections.
Israel, taking firm control over three major checkpoints on Gaza’s borders, continues to deprive the Palestinians, prohibiting the entry of hundreds of basic materials, including food items, construction material, medical supplies, and pharmaceuticals.
Last August, Israel and the Palestinian factions signed a ceasefire deal, ending the latest 2014 deadly summer Israeli onslaught on Gaza, which claimed the lives of over 2,200 people, overwhelmingly civilians.
The ceasefire deal stipulated that Israel would immediately ease the blockade imposed on the Strip and expand the fishing zone off Gaza’s coast, allowing fishermen to sail as far as six nautical miles from shore, and would continue to expand the area gradually.
Israel however continues the blockade and has not committed to the ceasefire deal and continues its targeting of Palestinian fishermen and farmers along the borders.
