Debate on Goldstone Report - UN Human
Rights Council - Emergency Session - October 16,
2009
Videos - Bill Moyers talks with Justice
Richard Goldstone, who headed up the controversial UN
Human Rights Council investigation into fighting in
Gaza between Israel and Hamas. >>>
In an interview with Al Jazeera's Shihab
Rattansi, Justice Richard Goldstone challenged the US
government to justify its claims that his findings are
flawed and biased.
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UN Fact Finding Mission finds
strong evidence of war crimes and crimes
against humanity committed during the Gaza
conflict; calls for end to impunity
NEW YORK / GENEVA –
The UN Fact-Finding
Mission led by Justice Richard Goldstone
on Tuesday released its long-awaited report
on the Gaza conflict, in which it concluded
there is evidence indicating serious violations
of international human rights and humanitarian
law were committed by Israel during the
Gaza conflict, and that Israel committed
actions amounting to war crimes, and possibly
crimes against humanity.
The report also concludes there is evidence
that Palestinian armed groups committed
war crimes, as well as possibly crimes against
humanity, in their repeated launching of
rockets and mortars into Southern Israel.
The four members of the Mission* were appointed
by the President of the Human Rights Council
in April with a mandate to “To investigate
all violations of international human rights
law and international humanitarian law that
might have been committed at any time in
the context of the military operations that
were conducted in Gaza during the period
from 27 December 2008 and 18 January 2009,
whether before, during or after.”
In compiling the 574- page report, which
contains a detailed analysis of 36
specific incidents in Gaza, as well as a
number of others in the West Bank and Israel,
the Mission conducted 188 individual interviews,
reviewed more than 10,000 pages of documentation,
and viewed some 1,200 photographs, including
satellite imagery, as well as 30 videos.
The mission heard 38 testimonies during
two separate public hearings held in Gaza
and Geneva, which were webcast in their
entirety. The decision to hear participants
from Israel and the West Bank in Geneva
rather than in situ was taken after
Israel denied the Mission access to both
locations. Israel also failed to respond
to a comprehensive list of questions posed
to it by the Mission. Palestinian authorities
in both Gaza and the West Bank cooperated
with the Mission.
The Mission found that, in the lead
up to the Israeli military assault on
Gaza, Israel imposed a blockade amounting
to collective punishment and carried
out a systematic policy of progressive
isolation and deprivation of the Gaza
Strip. During the Israeli military
operation, code-named “Operation Cast
Lead,” houses, factories, wells, schools,
hospitals, police stations and other
public buildings were destroyed. Families
are still
living amid the rubble of their former
homes long after the attacks ended,
as reconstruction has been impossible
due to the continuing blockade.
More than 1,400 people were killed during
the military operation.
Significant trauma, both immediate and
long-term, has been suffered by the
population of Gaza. The Report notes
signs of profound depression, insomnia,
and effects such as bed-wetting among
children. The effects on children who
witnessed killings and violence, who
had thought they were facing death,
and who lost family members would be
long lasting, the Mission found, noting
in its Report that some 30 per cent
of children screened at UNRWA schools
suffered mental health problems.
The report concludes that the Israeli
military operation was directed at the
people of Gaza as a whole, in furtherance
of an overall and continuing policy
aimed at punishing the Gaza population,
and in a deliberate policy of disproportionate
force aimed at the civilian population.
The destruction of food supply installations,
water sanitation systems, concrete factories
and residential houses was the result
of a deliberate and systematic policy
which has made the daily process of
living, and dignified living, more difficult
for the civilian population.
The Report states that Israeli acts
that deprive Palestinians in the Gaza
Strip of their means of subsistence,
employment, housing, and water, that
deny their freedom of movement and their
right to leave and enter their own country,
that limit their rights to access a
court of law and an effective remedy,
could lead a competent court to find
that the crime of persecution, a crime
against humanity, has been committed.
The report underlines that in most of
the incidents investigated by it, and
described in the report, loss of life
and destruction caused by Israeli forces
during the military operation was a
result of disrespect for the fundamental
principle of “distinction” in international
humanitarian law that requires military
forces to distinguish between military
targets and civilians and civilian objects
at all times. The report states that
“Taking into account the ability to
plan, the means to execute plans with
the most developed technology available,
and statements by the Israeli military
that almost no errors occurred, the
Mission finds that the incidents and
patterns of events considered in the
report are the result of deliberate
planning and policy decisions.”
For example, Chapter XI of the report
describes a number of specific incidents
in which Israeli forces launched “direct
attacks against civilians with lethal
outcome.” These are, it says, cases
in which the facts indicate no justifiable
military objective was pursued by the
attack and concludes they amount to
war crimes. The incidents described
include:
·
Attacks in the Samouni neighbourhood,
in Zeitoun, south of Gaza City, including
the shelling of a house where soldiers
had forced Palestinian civilians to
assemble;
·
Seven incidents concerning “the shooting
of civilians while they were trying
to leave their homes to walk to a safer
place, waving white flags and, in some
of the cases, following an injunction
from the Israeli forces to do so;”
·
The targeting of a mosque at prayer
time, resulting in the death of 15 people.
A number of other incidents the Report
concludes may constitute war crimes
include a direct and intentional attack
on the Al Quds Hospital and an adjacent
ambulance depot in Gaza City.
The Report also covers violations arising
from Israeli treatment of Palestinians
in the West Bank, including excessive
force against Palestinian demonstrators,
sometimes resulting in deaths, increased
closures, restriction of movement, and
house demolitions. The detention of
Palestinian Legislative Council members,
the Report says, effectively paralyzed
political life in the OPT.
The Mission found that through activities
such as the interrogation of political
activists and repression of criticism
of its military actions, the Israeli
Government contributed significantly
to a political climate in which dissent
was not tolerated.
The Fact-Finding Mission also found
that the repeated acts of firing rockets
and mortars into Southern Israel by
Palestinian armed groups “constitute
war crimes and may amount to crimes
against humanity,” by failing to distinguish
between military targets and the civilian
population. “The launching of rockets
and mortars which cannot be aimed with
sufficient precisions at military targets
breaches the fundamental principle of
distinction,” the report says. “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.”
The Mission concludes that the rocket
and mortars attacks “have caused terror
in the affected communities of southern
Israel,” as well as “loss of life and
physical and mental injury to civilians
and damage to private houses, religious
buildings and property, thereby eroding
the economic and cultural life of the
affected communities and severely affecting
the economic and social rights of the
population.”
The Mission urges the Palestinian armed
groups holding the Israeli soldier Gilad
Shalit to release him on humanitarian
grounds, and, pending his release, give
him the full rights accorded to a prisoner
of war under the Geneva Conventions
including visits from the International
Committee of the Red Cross. The Report
also notes serious human rights violations,
including arbitrary arrests and extra-judicial
executions of Palestinians, by the authorities
in Gaza and by the Palestinian Authority
in the West Bank.
The prolonged situation of impunity
has created a justice crisis in the
Occupied Palestinian Territory that
warrants action, the Report says. The
Mission found the Government of Israel
had not carried out any credible investigations
into alleged violations. It recommended
that the UN Security Council require
Israel to report to it, within six months,
on investigations and prosecutions it
should carry out with regard to the
violations identified in its Report.
The Mission further recommends that
the Security Council set up a body of
independent experts to report to it
on the progress of the Israeli investigations
and prosecutions. If the experts’ reports
do not indicate within six months that
good faith, independent proceedings
are taking place, the Security Council
should refer the situation in Gaza to
the ICC Prosecutor. The Mission recommends
that the same independent expert body
also report to the Security Council
on proceedings undertaken by the relevant
Gaza authorities with regard to crimes
committed by the Palestinian side. As
in the case of Israel, if within six
months there are no good faith independent
proceedings conforming to international
standards in place, the Council should
refer the situation to the ICC Prosecutor.
* The members of the Fact Finding
Mission are:
Justice Richard Goldstone,
Head of Mission; former judge of the
Constitutional Court of South Africa;
former Prosecutor of the International
Criminal Tribunals for the former Yugoslavia
and Rwanda. Professor
Christine Chinkin,
Professor of International Law at the
London School of Economics and Political
Science; member of the high-level fact-finding
mission to Beit Hanoun (2008). Ms. Hina
Jilani,
Advocate of the Supreme Court of Pakistan;
former Special Representative of the
Secretary-General on the situation of
human rights defenders; member of the
International Commission of Inquiry
on Darfur (2004). Colonel
Desmond Travers,
former Officer in Ireland’s Defence
Forces; member of the Board of Directors
of the Institute for International Criminal
Investigations.
For: Argentina,
Brazil, China, Russia, Bahrain,
Bangladesh, Bolivia, Chile,
Cuba, Djbouti, Egypt, Ghana,
India, Indonesia, Jordan,
Mauritius, Nicaragua, Nigeria,
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Saudi Arabia, Senegal, South
Africa and Zambia