Sept. 17, 2009
A United Nations report has concluded that both the Israeli military and armed Palestinian groups committed actions amounting to war crimes during Israel’s three-week war in Gaza.
This report also includes violations in the West Bank as well.
The UN Mission repeatedly sought to obtain the cooperation of the Government of Israel. After numerous attempts had failed, the Mission sought and obtained the assistance of the Government of Egypt to enable it to enter the Gaza Strip through the Rafah crossing.
Due to the lack of cooperation from the Israeli Government, the Mission was unable to meet members of the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank. They had to travel to Geneva.
Which in itself says a lot about Israel.
This I found very disappointing.
The Mission received allegations that depleted and nondepleted uranium were used by Israeli forces in Gaza. These allegations were not further investigated by the Mission.
The report also covers a great deal of history.
Israel is a party to the four Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949, but has not ratified their Additional Protocols I or II on the protection of victims of armed conflict. In addition, Israel is a party to the Convention on Prohibitions or Restrictions on the Use of Certain Conventional Weapons Which May be Deemed to be Excessively Injurious or to Have Indiscriminate Effects, as well as its Protocol I on Non-Detectable Fragments, both of 10 October 1980.
Under the rules of State responsibility, Israel is responsible for any
violations of international law attributable to it. Specifically, under the Fourth Geneva Convention, article 29, “the Party to a conflict in whose hands protected persons may be, isresponsible for the treatment accorded to them by its agents, irrespective of any individual responsibility which may be incurred.”Article 147 of the Fourth Geneva Convention defines
grave breaches as: … those involving any of the following acts, if committed against persons or property protected by the present Convention: wilful killing, torture or inhuman treatment, including biological experiments, wilfully causing great suffering orserious injury to body or health, unlawful deportation or transfer or unlawful confinement of a protected person, compelling a protected person to serve in the forces of a hostile Power, or wilfully depriving a protected person of the rights of fair and regular trial prescribed in the present Convention, taking of hostages and extensive destruction and appropriation of property, not justified by military necessity and carried out unlawfully and wantonly. (Page 89-90)
Israeli /Air strikes started December 27 until January 3 2009. (page 102) In total, between 2,300 and 3,000 sorties were flown.
The report concludes the Police force officers who were killed many within the first five minutes of attacks on Gaza were in fact Civilians.. This was something Israelis has argued about.
Many of the allegations Israel made against Palestinian fighters were not true.
The report also talks about crimes that were commited by Palestinian fighters.
It may be a long read but definitely worth reading.
Some parts are a bit repetitious, but on a whole a rather accurate report. I found they came to the same conclusions as I did while following the conflict.
Up to page 178 anyway, which is where I am at this point. I may add more comments as I read the rest of the report. I thought I would go ahead and publish it so others can read it as well.
Happy reading folks.
Download and read the 575-page report “Human Rights in Palestine and Other Occupied Arab Territories” by the United Nations Fact Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict (UNFFMGC).
Download and save to file then open to read. If you need Adobe I have provided the link to the latest version.
Download the latest version of Adobe Reader
Assassinations in Gaza and West Bank
Total Direct Aid to Israel Conservatively Estimated at almost$114 Billion
110th Congress Voting Records (114KB PDF)
2008 Pro-Israel PAC Contributions to Congressional Candidates (100KB PDF)
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