Israel presents its own report on Gaza war: Hamas is to blame

Israeli report comes days ahead of UNHRC report which is expected to be the basis of any Palestinian war crimes case against Israel before the International Criminal Court.

JPOST

The Foreign Ministry on Sunday published an inter-ministerial report on last summer’s Operation Protective Edge in Gaza intended to preempt the UN Human Right’s Council commission report on the Gaza operation that is expected to be released this week.

The government report poses the Gaza war as a defensive war that was launched reluctantly “in response to increasing rocket and mortar fire on Israel from the Gaza Strip during June and early July 2014, and despite Israel’s continued efforts at de-escalation.”

The report then details Israel’s continued efforts to reach a cease-fire to end fighting, and its eventual decision to send ground forces into Gaza. “On July 17, 2014, as a result of Hamas’s continued rejection of cease-fire initiatives, ongoing rocket and mortar fire and the execution of attacks in Israeli territory by sea and through cross-border assault tunnels, the Government of Israel authorized the entry of ground forces into a limited area of the Gaza Strip.”

The government has been working on the report, and debating the timing of its release, for weeks. It was originally scheduled to be released in March, when the UNHRC report was set to be released, but was postponed after the UN report was postponed since the commission’s head, William Schabas, was forced to step down after it was revealed that he had worked briefly as a paid consultant for the PLO in 2012.

The UNHRC report is expected to be the basis of any Palestinian war crimes case against Israel before the International Criminal Court. Israel refused to cooperate with the UNHRC probe from the outset, charging that the commission is tantamount to a kangaroo court, whose conclusions were determined before the investigation even began.

The Israeli report released Sunday tried to head off war crimes allegations by placing the blame on Hamas for firing rockets from urban environments and using civilians as human shields.

“Hamas combat manuals and training materials recovered by IDF forces in the Gaza Strip demonstrate that Hamas’s strategy was to deliberately draw the hostilities into the urban terrain, and to use built-up areas and the presence of the civilian population for tactical advantage and political gain.”

The report stated that “despite the IDF’s commitment to the rule of law and efforts to protect civilians,” numerous civilians were caught in the hostilities because of Hamas’s illegal tactics that themselves constitute war crimes.

The report also detailed Israel’s examination and investigation mechanism for dealing with alleged misconduct by IDF forces.

Speaking of the Israeli report, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Sunday, “This presents the true fact that the actions carried out by the IDF were done in accordance to international law.”

Netanyahu said the operation was carried out to defend Israeli citizens from a terrorist organization that was carrying out a dual war crime: firing indiscriminately on Israeli citizens while hiding behind their own citizens.

“Israel and the IDF are committed to the rules of international law even when fighting terrorist organizations that intentionally violated those rules,” he said. Netanyahu added that this commitment does not flow from one report or another, but rather from the fact that “Israel is a democratic, moral state that acts in accordance to international law.”

Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri called the Israeli report worthless, saying “Israeli war crimes are clear because they were committed in front of live cameras”. Hamas has denied any wrongdoing, saying it acted to protect Palestinians.