OHCHR - PRESS RELEASE: GOLDSTONE'S REPORT / GAZA -link to the full report
Judith Harel
|
United Nations Fact Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict |
The full report
can be found on the web page of the Fact Finding Mission:
http://www2.ohchr.org/english/bodies/hrcouncil/specialsession/9/FactFindingMission.htm
For further
media information: contact Doune Porter, Office of the UN High Commissioner for
Human Rights, Tel: 1-917-367-3292 or +41-79-477-2576. Email: dpo...@ohchr.org
PRESS RELEASE
15 September 2009
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 also 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 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 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 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.
The full
report can be found on the web page of the Fact Finding Mission: http://www2.ohchr.org/english/bodies/hrcouncil/specialsession/9/FactFindingMission.htm
For further media
information: contact Doune Porter, Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human
Rights, Tel: 1-917-367-3292 or +41-79-477-2576. Email: dpo...@ohchr.org