Israel exonerates itself on Gaza war ahead of UN report

Ahead of this week's expected release of a United Nations report on last summer's war in Gaza, Jerusalem has produced its own report concluding that Israel acted in self-defence and according to international law.

The 277-page foreign ministry report found that nearly half (44 per cent) of the 2,125 Palestinians killed were confirmed to have been armed militants belonging to Hamas or other militias, and that Hamas perpetrated crimes against civilians both in Israel and in the Gaza Strip.

The UN claims that 2,189 Palestinians died during the war, including more than 1,486 civilians. Sixty-seven Israeli soldiers were killed, along with six civilians.

Israel refused to cooperate with the UN Human Rights Council's inquiry into the 50-day conflict. Prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu described the UN probe as "worthless".

“Anyone who wants to continue with an automatic indictment against Israel, which is baseless, can waste his time reading the UN commission report,” he said.

The comprehensive Israeli report found that Hamas intentionally and strategically attacked from within civilian areas and used civilians as shields for military targets, thus committing war crimes.

“The longer Hamas has controlled the Gaza Strip, the more it has invested in embedding its military operations within and under the urban terrain,” the report reads. “Hamas training and doctrinal materials found by Israel Defence Forces (IDF) during the operation attest to Hamas’s intentional efforts to draw the IDF into combat in densely populated areas and to actively use the civilian population in order to obstruct the IDF’s military operations.”

Compliance

The report found that, in contrast with Hamas’s civilian-shield strategy, the Israeli army made every effort to ensure compliance with international law, regularly going beyond its legal obligations in an effort to protect civilian life.

Canadian law expert William Schabas, who initially led the UN inquiry, said it was likely that both Israel and Hamas had violated international law during the 50-day conflict.

“It would actually be a very unusual war if only one side had committed violations of the laws of war and the other side behaved perfectly,” he said.

Israel admits that some of its military attacks resulted in damage to residential buildings, schools, mosques, and medical and UN facilities, but claims that damage occurred mostly when these sites became lawful military targets due to militant groups’ use of them for military purposes

The report stressed that that the Israeli army is reviewing hundreds of complaints regarding its conduct of operations during the war.

Thirteen criminal investigations have been opened and more than 120 incidents are being examined as part of Israel’s ongoing review of the operation.

A spokesman for Hamas dismissed the Israeli report as worthless. “Israeli war crimes are clear because they were committed in front of live cameras,” Sami Abu Zuhri said.