24th June, 2015
A UN inquiry has found evidence pointing to "serious violations of international humanitarian law and international human rights law" by Israel and by Palestinian armed groups, some of which "may amount to war crimes".
Appointed by the UN Human Rights Council last September to investigate last year’s conflict between Israel and Palestinian armed groups, the commission of inquiry said that "impunity prevails across the board" for violations allegedly committed by Israeli forces, whether it be in the context of active hostilities in Gaza or killings, torture and ill-treatment in the West Bank and called for Israel to "break with its recent lamentable track record in holding wrongdoers accountable".
The commission said it also has "serious concerns" over the "inherently indiscriminate nature" of most of the projectiles directed towards Israel by armed Palestinian groups and over the targeting of Israeli civilians, which "may amount to a war crime". It said Palestinian authorities must act to counter their consistent failure to ensure perpetrators of violations of international laws are brought to justice and that Israeli victims are "granted their right to effective remedies and reparation".
The commission found that 1,462 Palestinian civilians were killed, a third of them children, in the 51 day operation conducted by Israel while Palestinian armed groups fired 4,881 rockets and 1,753 mortars towards Israel in July and August 2014, killing six civilians and injuring at least 1,600.
Israeli authorities, which have repeatedly claimed the inquiry is biased and launched their own inquiry which found Israeli forces had acted in accord with international law, did not respond to the commission’s request for access to Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territory. But the commission said it obtained firsthand testimony from interviews conducted over phones and computers as well as from interviews during two visits to Jordan and people who travelled to UN headquarters in Geneva.
The report, which was released Monday, will be formally presented at the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva next week.
– A full copy of the report can be found here.
– DAVID ADAMS
