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| UN condemns 'war crimes' in Gaza | |
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| Topic Started: Oct 19 2009, 09:32 PM (14 Views) | |
| shure | Oct 19 2009, 09:32 PM Post #1 |
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UN condemns 'war crimes' in Gaza Wednesday, 16 September 2009 08:51 UK http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8257301.stm  There is evidence that both Israeli and Palestinian forces committed war crimes in the recent conflict in Gaza, a long-awaited official UN report says. It accuses Israel of deliberately using "disproportionate force" in the three-week operation in December and January. The report also condemned rocket attacks by Palestinian groups which Israel says sparked its offensive. Palestinians and human rights groups say more than 1,400 Gazans were killed, but Israel puts the figure at 1,166. Three Israeli civilians and 10 Israeli soldiers were also killed. Israel, which had refused to co-operate with the UN fact-finding team, said the report was "clearly one-sided". The investigation, led by South African judge Richard Goldstone, found evidence "indicating serious violations of international human rights and humanitarian law were committed by Israel during the Gaza conflict", a UN statement said. Israel also "committed actions amounting to war crimes, and possibly crimes against humanity". The Israeli operations, the document states, "were carefully planned in all their phases as a deliberately disproportionate attack designed to punish, humiliate and terrorise a civilian population". Civilian targets The report accuses Israel of imposing "a blockade which amounted to collective punishment" in the lead-up to the conflict. It says "the Israeli military operation was directed at the people of Gaza as a whole". The report says Israel must be held accountable for its actions during the war, a process which could lead to the conflict being referred to the International Criminal Court. The report found there was also evidence that Palestinian groups had committed war crimes, and possibly crimes against humanity, in their repeated rocket and mortars attacks on Israel. It says the launching of rockets which "cannot be aimed with precision at military targets" breaches the fundamental principle of sparing civilian lives. "Where there is no intended military target and the rockets and mortars are launched into civilian areas, they constitute a deliberate attack against the civilian population," it said. It also calls for the immediate release of Gilad Shalit, the Israeli soldier seized in a Palestinian raid in 2006 and taken to Gaza. Both the Israeli and Palestinian authorities are criticised for the treatment of their own civilians during the conflict. Israel's interrogation of political activists and repression of criticism of its activities had "contributed significantly to a political climate in which dissent was not tolerated", it said. Meanwhile, the alleged "arbitrary arrests" and "extra-judicial executions" of Palestinians by the authorities in both Gaza and the West Bank were also criticised. 'No mandate' Israeli government spokesman Mark Regev told the BBC the report had been "born in sin" and had no mandate for its investigation. The authorities in Gaza and the West Bank did co-operate with the UN mission, but Hamas, which controls the Gaza Strip, has also dismissed the report as "political, unbalanced and dishonest". Ismael Radwan, a senior Hamas official in Gaza, was quoted by AFP news agency as saying it "puts on the same level those who perpetrate crimes and those who resist". Mr Goldstone rejected such allegations, and told the BBC that "fair minded people" should read the report and "at the end of it, point out where it failed to be objective or even-handed". The 574-page document recommends that authorities in both Israel and Gaza be required to investigate the allegations and report to the UN Security Council within six months. The Israeli military insists troops acted lawfully during the conflict. The government says it has carried out more than 100 investigations into allegations of abuses by its forces - most were dismissed as "baseless" but 23 criminal investigations are still pending. It reiterated that it was "committed to acting fully in accordance with international law and to examining any allegations of wrongdoing by its forces". The full report - which is based on 188 interviews, more than 10,000 pages of documentation and 1,200 photographs and other material - will be presented to the UN Human Rights Council at the end of this month. Eight months after the conflict, very little reconstruction has taken place in Gaza because of the strict Israeli-imposed blockade which bans all but essential supplies from entering the enclave. The stated aim of the blockade is to weaken Hamas's leadership but aid agencies say it serves only to punish the civilian population. |
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| shure | Oct 19 2009, 09:34 PM Post #2 |
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Finance Minister: UN backing of Goldstone report is `anti-Semitic` Last update - 20:19 18/10/2009 By Haaretz Service http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1121842.html Finance Minister Yuval Steinitz on Sunday accused the United Nations Human Rights Council of anti-Semitism, after the UN body endorsed a damning report on Israel's winter Gaza offensive. "This is an anti-Semitic attempt to decide that what is allowed for the United States in Afghanistan, Russia in Chechnya and Turkey in north Iraq isn't allowed for Israel, a state that is trying to defend itself from the Gaza Strip," he told Army Radio. The Council endorsed the report on Friday, which was authored by the South African Judge Richard Goldstone. While accusing both Israel and Hamas of war crimes, the bulk of the findings in the report focused on Israeli actions during the three-week campaign. Steinitz further condemned the accusations against Israel. "We won't let Jews go again like lambs to the slaughter. The Jewish state has a right and a duty to defend its citizens no less that the United States, Russia, or Turkey." The Finance Minister also accused the Palestinian Authority for taking the opportunity to harass Israel in every international forum. "We will need to think hard if we want to continue giving them donations and developing the Palestinian Authority. We can't continue turning the other cheek." |
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7:02 PM Dec 3
