Amnesty International: Israel's response on Gaza investigations is ‘totally inadequate’

Wednesday, 03 February 2010 14:57

Amnesty International has criticised Israel’s response to UN demands for investigations into allegations of breaches of international humanitarian law during its brutal assault on Gaza last year as being ‘totally inadequate’.

Amnesty International Middle East and North Africa Programme Director Malcolm Smart said:

“The investigations undertaken by Israel fail to meet international standards of independence, impartiality, transparency, promptness and effectiveness.

“The Israeli military is investigating itself and in no way can this be adequate in obtaining the truth and ensuring justice for the victims.”

“There were numerous credible allegations during Operation ‘Cast Lead’ that violations of international humanitarian law by Israeli forces caused the deaths of hundreds of civilians, led others to be used as “human shields” and destroyed or damaged thousands of homes and other civilian infrastructure.

“Yet more than one year on, according to the update, only one soldier has been convicted of an offence as a result of the Israeli investigations, and that was the theft of a credit card.”

‘Amnesty research into Operation “Cast Lead” has revealed elements of reckless conduct, disregard for civilian lives and property and a consistent failure on the part of Israeli forces to distinguish between military targets and civilians and civilian objects. Israeli forces continued to employ tactics and weapons that resulted in growing numbers of civilian casualties for the entire duration of the military offensive. This was despite Israeli officials knowing from the first days of the military offensive that civilians were being killed and wounded in significant numbers.

‘Amnesty has drawn a number of incidents to the attention of the Israeli authorities who have not responded to the organisation’s repeated requests for clarification on specific incidents.

Malcolm Smart added:

“In his forthcoming report on domestic investigations by Israel and the Palestinian side, Ban Ki-moon must include a substantive assessment of whether these investigations meet the established UN criteria and are 'independent, credible and in conformity with international standards’.

“So far, it appears that neither of the parties are able or willing to conduct investigations meeting those standards. If this remains so, then the responsibility will fall on the UN to ensure accountability for the perpetrators and justice for the victims - and this must include the Security Council eventually considering a referral of the Gaza situation to the International Criminal Court and steps by the General Assembly to establish a fund for victims who were killed or injured or suffered loss or damage resulting from unlawful acts committed during the war.”

In addition, The Independent publishes a news story today on the admission by a high ranking officer in the Israeli army that ‘[Israel]] went beyond its previous rules of engagement on the protection of civilian [Palestinian] lives in order to minimise [Israeli] military casualties.’

And the Times yesterday published an article ‘Israeli officers get 'slap on wrist' for white phosphorus use in Gaza’.