More Specifics on the nature of the invasion and defence

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What was the nature of the attacks on the Gazan Parliament and a Gazan gaol investigated?

Although Israel asserts that they were legitimate targets, the mission found no evidence that they were in use as military bases or in any military way, found their targeting to be deliberate and therefore concluded that they were illegally targeted (according to the laws of war that prohibit the targeting of other than clear military targets).

What was the nature of the attacks upon the Gazan police force?

Israel has admitted to targeting the Gazan police force. In the first minutes of the hostilities on 27 December 2008, four police facilities were hit and 99 police personnel were killed (along with 9 apparent bystanders). Two other police facilities were targeted in the hostilities and a total of around 240 police personnel were killed in the period (accounting for a large percentage of the total of 1,400 killed mentioned in the last post). The mission regarded police force personnel as prima facie civilian personnel notwithstanding that a number of them may have actually been combatants as a result of their membership of other groups and therefore regarded their targeting particularly as a group as reckless and particularly as it was also likely that non-police personnel would be in the vicinity of the six facilities targeted at the time and in the places targeted. The mission was especially concerned that it was especially unlikely that the first 99 Gazan police force personnel killed along with the 9 non-police bystanders were likely to be in any way combatants in that earliest stage of hostilities.

Did Palestinian armed groups generally take sufficient care to avoid Gazan civilian casualties?

Gazan groups may have both improperly taken insufficient care to distinguish themselves from civilians and unreasonably operated in areas with civilians in the vicinity. However, as they did not force civilians into or to remain in such areas while they conducted operations, the burden remains with the Israeli forces to minimise civilian casualties. The mission found no evidence of mosque use or UN facility use (or especially hospital or ambulance use as claimed by Israel) for military purposes though it acknowledges that attacks may have occurred from near such facilities and some mosques especially may have been used for military purposes at some times and that, where such attacks occurred (or where facilities were used for military purposes), this potentially exposed civilians to unnecessary risk.

Did the Israeli armed forces generally take sufficient care to avoid Gazan civilian casualties?

Generally, Israel has an obligation to effectively warn civilians in advance of attacks and occasionally met this obligation by sufficiently specific warnings. On other occasions, however, warnings by pre-recorded telephone messages and leaflets were not sufficiently specific and therefore lacked sufficient credibility to be effective warnings. Messages directing civilians into central areas in cities, which central areas had already been bombed severely, also lacked the requisite credibility, in the view of the mission.

The practice of so-called “roof knocking” (i.e. the initial use of lesser explosives in the first phase of air attacks) was not considered by the mission to be an effective warning but rather to constitute in itself an attack upon the affected civilians. Finally, even apparently adequate warnings do not obviate the need for all other feasible measures to be used to prevent civilian casualties.

I will now consider three cases considered in detail by the mission.

The first was a high explosive and white phosphorous shelling over several hours on 15 January 2009 (after Israeli forces had been fully informed of the risk) on a UN compound in Gaza City sheltering 600 to 700 civilians that also contained a large fuel depot. Given this full warning to the Israeli forces, the mission considered that the Israeli armed forces violated the laws of war in this case in not adequately amending their choice of the means and method of this attack.
The second attack was on the same day and in the same city also with white phosphorous shells that the mission considers was deliberate, without warning and unprovoked (despite Israeli claims) on the Al-Quds Hospital and an adjacent ambulance depot. It caused panic among sick and injured people and produced fires that were not extinguished for a full day and evacuations were required.
The third case was an intense artillery bombardment also with white phosphorous upon another hospital in the east of the same city after inadequate generic and routine warnings.

The mission also found that attacks on civilian hospitals such as the two above are, of course, prohibited under the laws of war in any case. The implication appears to be that this third attack was also a deliberate attack on a hospital, as the second one evidently was.
The mission investigated a further apparently indiscriminate attack that resulted in fatal civilian casualties. At least four mortar shells were fired near a UN school in Jabalya that was sheltering more than 1,300 people and killed at least 35 people in a home and a nearby street. Israeli justifications lack credibility because of factual inaccuracies and in any case the mission considered the response to an alleged Palestinian mortar attack in this heavily populated area to be so out of proportion to be indiscriminate and to thus violate the laws of war and the right to life of the Palestinian civilians killed.

The mission next reported on eleven further separate lethal incidents of deliberate attacks on civilians.

On one of the two occasions on which houses had been attacked in the Samouni neighbourhood south of Gaza City, civilians had been forced by the Israeli forces to assemble in the house.

Seven other attacks were upon fleeing civilians with white flags displayed (in some cases fleeing as required by the Israeli forces). The report suggests that, in all nine cases to which it is referring, the Israelis were in control of the area, could reasonably be expected to have ascertained the civilian status of the person (or people) killed and that in the majority of the cases they deliberately prevented timely evacuation for treatment or access of ambulance personnel for evacuation or treatment. The mission considered this, together with corroborating testimony of Israeli soldiers that it reviewed in two publications that it received, amounted to a pattern suggestive of orders that provided for a low threshold for the use of lethal fire upon civilians.

The final two cases are of deliberate attacks upon civilians, the mission believed, in a mosque during the early evening prayer killing 15 and in a condolence tent killing five.

A further incident (of a house bombing that killed 22 family members that were sheltering inside) Israel claims to have been an error in that a neighbouring house containing munitions had been the target. The mission believed the claim lacked credibility and in any case regarded the act as an international wrong done by the Israeli state.

With regard to the use of white phosphorous generally, the mission considered that its use in this conflict in a built-up area by Israel was systematically and wilfully indiscriminate and, given the severe nature of the wounds it produces in civilians, proposed its use be completely banned in built up areas.
The use of flechette munitions, the mission suggested, which it noted the Israelis used in this conflict in built-up areas as, for example, at the condolence tent mentioned above, was also inappropriate in built-up areas because of the special possibility of unintended civilian casualties after detonation.

The mission received evidence from medical personnel which suggests that dense inert metal explosive (DIME) munitions may have also been used somewhat extensively with the special health issues for civilians that come with the use of DIME munitions and heavy metals.
The mission also received allegations which it did not test of the use of both depleted and non-depleted uranium munitions.

The next subject reported on was the destruction of industrial infrastructure, food production facilities, water and sewage infrastructure and housing.

After falsely warning of the destruction of the only remaining flour mill on the Strip on several previous days, the mill was finally struck several times on 9 January 2009 with no military justification. This is a grave breach according to the articles of the fourth Geneva Convention as a case of wanton destruction for a non-military purpose and therefore a war crime. Its clear purpose was also to deprive a civilian population of sustenance and it is thus also a violation of customary international law.

A strike on the chicken farms of Mr Sameh Sawafeary south of Gaza City alone (by armoured bulldozers systematically destroying plant and material, flattening chicken coops and killing all 31,000 chickens inside) depleted the Gaza egg market of 10% of its capacity. The mission drew the same legal conclusions as in the case of the flour mill.

The mission believed it had reasonable evidence that Israeli forces also deliberately struck the wall of a sewage treatment facility lagoon causing the outflow of 200,000 cubic metres of raw sewage onto neighbouring farm land.

Regarding the strikes on a water treatment plant, the mission believed, given the size of the plant and the multiple air strikes, that the Israelis deliberately struck the large water treatment plant on the first day of air strikes. Again, the same legal findings apply as with the flour mill.

Several residential neighbourhoods were subject to both aerial bombing and intensive shelling in the context of the ground advance. In other cases, however, no military advantage can be associated with such attacks on such areas. The mission has concluded that such a wave of unnecessary but systematic destruction coincided with the final three days of the conflict and the imminence of the Israeli withdrawal and this conclusion has been corroborated by the published testimony of Israeli soldiers. The same legal conclusions must again be drawn as with the flour mill and also the right of adequate housing of the families whose houses were damaged or destroyed was violated by this destructive wave.

Further to this, the only cement packaging plant in Gaza, ready mix concrete factories, more chicken farms and food and drink factories were destroyed, in the opinion of the mission indicating a clear policy of general destruction of non-military infrastructure.

In four incidents considered by the mission, Israeli forces were alleged to have coerced Gazan civilian men at gun point, blindfolded and handcuffed into being “human shields” during house searches (despite assurances by the Israeli military that this illegal practice (as confirmed by the Israeli High Court) had been discontinued). The mission believed that the allegations, corroborated as they also were by the testimony of Israeli soldiers, were well-founded. The same men were also interrogated under threat of death or injury in an attempt to extract information, also a violation of international humanitarian law.

Large numbers of civilians were also rounded up and detained during the conflict. Many Palestinian men in particular were taken to Israeli detention facilities in Israel. In none of the cases investigated by the mission did the evidence show that the men were armed or apparently dangerous to the Israeli forces. Detention was often degrading, unsanitary and dangerous to the health of the civilians detained due to long periods of exposure in the open in cold weather in some cases and frequently deprivation of water and food.

In one case, the detainees were located next to a position from which Israeli tanks and artillery emplacements were firing.
In Israel, harsh interrogations occurred, charges were laid in some cases of being unlawful combatants (but not sustained in the case of any of the victims interviewed) and degradations continued.

This treatment of civilians is consistent with the evidently systematic pattern of abuse noted throughout the mission’s report. The defence of error appears difficult to sustain in the light of the advanced precision weapons used by the Israeli forces, the statements by the Israeli forces that almost no errors occur and the human rights training the forces receive. In that light, the mission concluded that the apparent systematic abuse is clearly deliberate.
The concept of the deliberate use, as a policy being employed, of disproportionate force, great civilian mal-treatment and the indiscriminate destruction of civilian infrastructure and property, developed in Lebanon in 2006, and sometimes referred to as the Dahiya Doctrine, is evident in this conflict. Israeli leaders have, in fact, not hidden this doctrine, making such statements as “destroy 100 homes for every rocket fired” (such destruction would be a clear contravention of international humanitarian law, the mission believed).

The combined effect of the blockade banning or restricting imports and exports which already produces inhumane results and the military action is naturally even more inhumane. The already blockade-impaired economy is now further impaired by a lack of fuel for electricity upon which much basic infrastructure depends.

Factories, fishing boats and much agricultural land and many wells were all rendered unusable by the conflict and in its aftermath, further exacerbating the economic malaise. What is more, the continued blockade impedes any reconstruction efforts.

The UN Development Programme has reported the apparent conflict outcome of 3,354 completely destroyed houses and 11,112 partially damaged houses. Health outcomes, already damaged by the blockade, can be expected to deteriorate as a result of the resulting homelessness among other things, particularly affecting women and children. Already unsatisfactory water and sanitary standards (largely due to the blockade) have been substantially worsened by the infrastructure attacks mentioned above and also by the consequent leakage of partially treated sewage into the sea. The thus already blockade-weakened and more and more overstretched health system itself was directly attacked by the Israeli armed forces at the same time as it had to deal with the casualties of the conflict.
The numbers of people affected by permanent physical and mental disabilities and illnesses is thus likely to be great especially following the use of white phosphorous and tungsten containing munitions. Gazan mental health professionals have claimed that 20% of children are today suffering Post Traumatic Stress Disorders.
In addition, 280 schools and kindergartens were destroyed that (along with the rest of the school system) the blockade had, in any case, long deprived of the opportunity for adequate repair.
The mission also suggested that the position of women had likely deteriorated as a result of the generally deteriorating situation, as claimed by some submissions.
The mission acknowledged the temporary increase in the unsatisfactory level of humanitarian aid permitted into Gaza during the conflict but noted that the level of aid permitted had been reduced again since the end of the conflict. In particular, it found that Israel had violated its legal obligation to allow the free passage of all medical and hospital objects and food and clothing into Gaza. Further the mission noted that it had not met its obligations as an occupying power to provide adequate medical and hospital services and to permit relief operations where the territory is not well-supplied.

Given all of the above, Israel has further, by both its earlier blockade and recent destruction, deliberately denied the population of Gaza its rights to sustenance and a decent standard of living and illegally inflicted a collective punishment on the population. The mission further considered that some of the restrictions that continue to be imposed by the Israeli government upon Gazans might constitute acts that amount to crimes against humanity.