The UN Human Rights Council has backed a report into the Israeli offensive in Gaza that accuses both Israel and Palestinian militants of war crimes. The report by Richard Goldstone calls for credible investigations by Israel and Hamas, and suggests international war crimes prosecutions if they do not. 25 countries voted for the resolution, while six were against. The United States and Israel opposed official endorsement of the report, saying it would set back Middle East peace hopes.
The Palestinian Authority initially backed deferring a vote, but changed its position after domestic criticism. Palestinians and human rights groups say more than 1,400 Gazans were killed in the 22-day conflict that ended in January, but Israel puts the figure at 1,166. Thirteen Israelis, including three civilians, were killed.
Earlier this month Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had urged UN members to “come to their senses” and reject the Goldstone report. He said UN endorsement of the strong criticism of Israel would deal “a fatal blow” to peace efforts. He said, it would legitimize “terrorists who hide behind civilians” by laying the blame on victims of terror who act in self-defense. He also said UN prestige would be adversely affected and the body would become irrelevant like “the darkest days where absurd decisions were passed”.
In September, the UN human rights report said both the Israeli army and Palestinian militants committed war crimes and possible crimes against humanity during the fighting in January. Reacting to the report, Israeli government spokesman Mark Regev said, the report “was flawed from A-to-Z”, the UN panel was “biased” and some of its findings “ludicrous.”
The report calls for fresh war crimes inquiries under international scrutiny. It said said Israel’s “Operation Cast Lead”, launched in response to militant rocket fire, used disproportionate firepower against the densely populated Gaza Strip and disregarded the likelihood of civilian deaths. The militant group Hamas criticized parts of the report alleging it fired rockets at Israel without distinguishing between military targets and the civilian population.
Sep 14: Linda Gradstein reports that conditions in the Gaza Strip have not improved as much as aid donors would have liked:
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On Sep 9th, an Israeli human rights group said many more Palestinian civilians were killed in the Israeli military’s campaign in Gaza than the army admits. B’Tselem said detailed research with careful cross-checking showed 1,387 Palestinians died, over half of them civilians and 252 of them children. This contradicts an Israeli army report stating fewer than 300 civilians died in fighting in December and January.
Earlier this year the Israeli army said that 1,166 Gazans were killed in the conflict, a quarter of whom were civilians. Its figures indicated that the toll included 709 militants from Hamas and other groups, and 295 non-combatants. According to B’Tselem, 1,387 Palestinians were killed by the Israeli military, including 773 civilians, 330 combatants and 248 civilian police – whom Israeli officials classify as militants.
Israel launched the assault to halt rocket attacks from Hamas-run Gaza. The overall B’Tselem total broadly tallies with the official Palestinian death toll and the findings of other non-governmental organisations, although the proportion of civilians it identifies is lower.
In July, a group of soldiers who took part in Israel’s assault in Gaza said widespread abuses were committed against civilians under “permissive” rules of engagement. The troops said they had been urged to fire on any building or person that seemed suspicious and said Palestinians were sometimes used as human shields.
Breaking the Silence, a campaign group made up of Israeli soldiers, gathered anonymous accounts from 26 soldiers. Israel denies breaking the laws of war and dismissed the report as hearsay. The report says testimonies show “the massive and unprecedented blow to the infrastructure and civilians” was a result of Israeli military policy, articulated by the rules of engagement, and encouraged by a belief “the reality of war requires them to shoot and not to ask questions”.
Amnesty report on Israeli operation “Cast Lead.”
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In May, a United Nations inquiry into attacks by Israeli forces on UN property during the Gaza conflict heavily criticized Israel’s army. It found Israel to blame in six out of nine incidents when death or injury were caused to people sheltering at UN property and UN buildings were damaged. Israeli Defense Minister, Ehud Barak, rejected the report, saying it was biased. “We have the most moral army in the world,” he said. “IDF (Israel Defense Forces) commanders and soldiers made every effort to avoid hurting uninvolved civilians.”
In April, the Israeli military said internal investigations showed it acted according to international law during its operations in Gaza. A small number of errors did take place, it admits, such as the deaths of 21 people in a wrongly targeted house, but it claims these were “unavoidable”. The military said Gaza militants had used civilian sites for cover.
Human rights group have raised concerns about war crimes and say a wider, external investigation is needed. Israel faced widespread accusations of operating in a disproportionate and heavy-handed way during three-week conflict in January. Palestinians say more than 1,400 Gazans were killed, of whom more than two-thirds were civilians. Israel puts the figure lower, at 1,166 dead, of whom it says about two-thirds were fighters.
In March international donors pledged almost $4.5 billion in aid to the Palestinians, chiefly to rebuild Gaza after the Israeli offensive. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Washington would donate $900 million, and vigorously seek to advance peace.
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Palestinian disunity
In June 2007, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas swore in a new emergency government that excluded his Islamist rivals, Hamas, who had seized control of Gaza after intense fighting between the rival factions. Abbas also issued decrees enabling new Prime Minister Salam Fayyad to rule without parliamentary approval and outlawing all of Hamas’s armed forces. Fayyad’s predecessor, Hamas leader Ismail Haniya called the new government illegal, while the United States and the European Union declared their support for the emergency government.
The collapsed Palestinian unity government which included Hamas had only been agreed in February 2007 after several months of fighting between the factions but mistrust between Hamas and Fatah continued. Armed clashes in Gaza in December 2006 and January 2007 had already brought the Palestinian rivals to the brink of civil war. Only after crisis talks hosted by Saudi Arabia did Hamas and Fatah agree to form the unity government.
 Hamas patrol in the Gaza strip in 2007 (AP photo) |
However Western nations continued their aid boycott of the Palestinian Authority at the time because the Hamas movement refuses to renounce violence against Israel. The United States, the UN, the European Union and Russia – the so-called Quartet – repeatedly said that Hamas must meet three conditions before the financial blockade can be lifted: renounce violence, recognize Israel, and abide by previous agreements between Israel and the Palestinians.
Key Players in the Conflict:
Hamas leader Ismail Haniya
Haniya had been Palestinian prime minister since March 29th, 2006, after his militant Hamas movement won a clear majority in the parliamentary election in January 2006. In March 2007 he became the prime minister of a government of national unity which included Fatah members. After gun battles in Gaza, the unity government collapsed in June 2007 and President Abbas appointed a new prime minister, but Haniya refused to accept his dismissal, describing the new emergency government as “illegal”.
Hamas, the largest Palestinian militant Islamist movement, is considered a terrorist organization by the United States, the European Union, and Israel, all of which have refused to deal directly with Hamas officials.
Hamas pursues the long-term aim of establishing an Islamic state on all of historic Palestine – most of which has been contained within Israel’s borders since its creation in 1948. The grass-roots organization – with a political and a military wing – has an unknown number of active members but tens of thousands of supporters and sympathizers.
The decision to stand in Palestinian elections was a major departure for Hamas at the time. Top figures say it reflects the importance of the movement and the need for it to play a role in a failing Palestinian political sphere rife with corruption, inefficiency and lost credibility. But Hamas’ armed wing remains the epitome of the “terrorist infrastructure” which the Palestinian Authority is called on to dismantle under the international peace plan known as the roadmap.
Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal
Meshaal was named Hamas leader following Israeli’s killing of the group’s founder, Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, in March 2004. The organization’s covert structure means it is unclear what authority he wields, but from his exile in the Syrian capital, Damascus, he has played an important role since the group won a majority in the 2006 Palestinian parliamentary elections.
Meshaal survived an Israeli assassination attempt on his life back in 1997 and he has always supported Palestinian attacks on Israelis. Like many Palestinians, he believes that such attacks are a legitimate act of resisting the Israeli occupation.
Israel has accused Meshaal and the Syrian-based leadership of Hamas of being behind the kidnapping of Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit. Cpl Shalit was seized in a cross-border raid by militants in June 2006, sparking an Israeli ground offensive in the Gaza Strip.
New Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (Likud)
Following the Israeli election on Feb 10th, 2009, Benjamin Netanyahu, the leader of the right-of-center Likud party, was asked to form Israel’s next government. He became prime minister at the end of March after having previously served in that position between June 1996 and July 1999. Netanyahu is also a former foreign and finance minister of Israel. The centrist Kadima of former prime minister Ehud Olmert narrowly defeated Likud in the February election, but Netanyahu has the support of the religious and right-wing parties which make up more than half of Israel’s parliament.
The new Israeli government is not expected to make concessions to the Palestinians. There would be strong pressures from within such a coalition to go full steam ahead on settlement-building on the West Bank. Therefore Netanyahu’s government could easily find itself on a collision course with the Obama administration in Washington.
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas (FATAH)
Abbas (also known as Abu Mazen) is the leader of the Fatah Party and was elected president of the Palestinian Authority in January 2005, to succeed the late Yasser Arafat. Then President George W. Bush praised the election of the moderate PLO leader as a tribute to the power and appeal of democracy and an “inspiration” to the region. In May 2005 Abbas became the first Palestinian leader to be given the red carpet treatment in Washington during the Bush presidency.
Abbas’ position as Palestinian leader became very complicated after the rival Hamas movement defeated his Fatah party in the parliamentary election on January 25th, 2006 and formed a cabinet without the participation of Fatah. The secular nationalist Fatah movement founded by Arafat in the 1950s had dominated Palestinian politics for many decades.
In December 2006 the tensions between Fatah and Hamas escalated into armed clashes in the Gaza Strip, further heavy fighting in June 2007 resulted in Hamas taking over the entire Gaza strip and ejecting Fatah. Abbas declared a state of emergency, appointed Salam Fayyad prime minister and fired Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniya, but Haniya refused to accept his dismissal.
More on the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians
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