(New
York) – Israel has failed to demonstrate that it will conduct thorough
and impartial investigations into alleged laws-of-war violations by its
forces during last year’s Gaza conflict, Human Rights Watch said
today.  An independent investigation is needed if perpetrators of
abuse, including senior military and political officials who set
policies that violated the laws of war, are to be held accountable,
Human Rights Watch said.

On February 4, 2010, Human Rights Watch met with military lawyers
from the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) to discuss the investigations. 
While the military is conducting ongoing investigations, officials did
not provide information showing that these will be thorough and
impartial or that they will address the broader policy and command
decisions that led to unlawful civilian deaths, Human Rights Watch
said.

“Israel claims it is conducting credible and impartial
investigations, but it has so far failed to make that case,” said Joe
Stork, deputy Middle East director for Human Rights Watch.  “An
independent investigation is crucial to understand why so many
civilians died and to bring justice for the victims of unlawful
attacks.”

In one case, a military investigation apparently missed an important
piece of evidence: remains of an aerial bomb found in the al-Badr flour
mill outside Jabalya.  Israel denied targeting the mill from the air,
as alleged by the United Nations Fact-Finding Mission on the Gaza
Conflict.  However, video footage obtained by Human Rights Watch and
released today shows the apparent remains of an Israeli MK-82 500-pound
aerial bomb in the damaged mill, and UN de-miners say they defused the
bomb.

More than 750 Palestinian civilians in Gaza were killed during the conflict, according to the Israeli human rights group  B’Tselem.  The UN has said that nearly 3,500 homes and 280 factories were completely destroyed. 

Human Rights Watch documented 53 civilian deaths in 19 incidents in
which Israeli forces appeared to have violated the laws of war.  Six of
these incidents involved the unlawful use of white phosphorus munitions; six were attacks by drone-launched missiles that killed civilians; and seven involved soldiers shooting civilians who were in groups holding white flags.

To date, Israeli military courts have convicted only one soldier of
wartime abuse during the Gaza conflict, for theft of a credit card.

 The Israeli military lawyers said the military was investigating
all cases reported by Human Rights Watch.  Seven of the cases are
criminal investigations into the alleged shooting of civilians waving
white flags, they said.  The military had originally dismissed Human Rights Watch’s report on these cases as based on “unreliable witness reports.”

The Israeli military has thus far examined specific incidents but
not broader policies that may have caused civilian casualties in
violation of the laws of war, Human Rights Watch said. 

An independent investigation should examine the pre-operation
decisions that led to civilian casualties, Human Rights Watch said.
These include the decision to target Hamas’s political infrastructure;
the use of heavy artillery and white phosphorus munitions in populated
areas; attacks on Gaza police; and the apparently permissive rules of
engagement for drone operators and ground forces.

“The Israeli investigations so far have looked mostly at soldiers
who disobeyed orders or the rules of engagement, but failed to ask the
crucial question about whether those orders and rules of engagement
themselves violated the laws of war,” Stork said.  “For those decisions
and policies, senior military and political decision-makers should be
held responsible.”

Hamas is not known to have prosecuted anyone for firing hundreds of
rockets indiscriminately into Israel.  On January 27 it issued a news
statement and report summary, saying that rockets from Palestinian
armed groups had only targeted Israeli military objects and that
civilian casualties were accidental – a conclusion that Human Rights
Watch rejected
as “legally and factually wrong.”  Hamas released a full report about
its conduct during the war on February 3 that Human Rights Watch is
still reviewing.

In September 2009, the UN Fact-Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict,
headed by Justice Richard Goldstone, determined that Israel and Hamas
had committed war crimes and possible crimes against humanity and
called on both parties to conduct impartial investigations within six
months.

On November 5, the UN General Assembly endorsed the Goldstone report
and asked UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon for a progress report about
domestic investigations.  Ban gave his report
on February 4, passing on documents provided to him by Israel and the
West Bank-based Palestinian Authority, and reiterating his call for
credible and impartial investigations by all sides.

“Secretary-General Ban merely passed on the parties’ claims, but he
also reasserted the importance of credible investigations in conformity
with international standards,” Stork said.  “The pressure is still on
Israel and Hamas to show that they will do it right.”

According to Israel, the military has conducted roughly 150
“investigations” of incidents in Gaza, but it has not provided a list
of the cases.  Nearly 90 of the 150 investigations are what the
military calls an “operational debriefing” – tahkir mivza’i
in Hebrew.  These are after-action reports, not criminal
investigations, in which an officer in the chain of command interviews
the soldiers involved, with no testimony from victims or witnesses.
Forty-five of these 90 cases have been closed.

The Israeli military says that military police have opened 36
criminal investigations, in which a military police investigator takes
statements from soldiers and seeks testimony from outside sources.  One
resulted in the conviction for the credit card theft, incurring a seven
and a half month prison sentence, and seven were closed due to lack of
evidence or because the complainants were unwilling to testify.  The
remaining 28 are ongoing.

The military said it has disciplined four soldiers and officers for
violating orders during the Gaza conflict.  In one case, two commanders
received notes of reprimand for firing high-explosive artillery shells
that hit a UN compound where 700 civilians were taking shelter, despite
dozens of phone calls from UN officials asking for the shelling to
stop. During the same attack, artillery-fired white phosphorus set fire
to a UN warehouse and injured three people in the compound. The
military told Human Rights Watch that the white phosphorus aspect of
the case is still under investigation and was not part of the reason
for the reprimand.  The only information the military has released
about the other two disciplinary cases is that one resulted from an
attack on UN property or personnel, and the other from an incident of
property destruction.

The video
Human Rights Watch released today of the al-Badr flour mill was filmed
by the mill’s owners after it was damaged, on January 10, 2009.  The UN
fact-finding report said the Israeli military bombed the mill in a
deliberate attempt to damage the civilian infrastructure of Gaza.
Israel said its investigation found that the mill was a legitimate
military target because of Hamas activity in the area and that it only
fired a tank shell and did not bomb the mill from the air.

The UN told Human Rights Watch that de-miners visited the mill on
February 11, 2009, and found the front half of a 500-pound Mk-82
aircraft bomb on an upper floor of the mill, corroborating the contents
of the video.

The military lawyers told Human Rights Watch that, when provided with new evidence, they could reopen an investigation.

Israel has a poor record of military investigations into alleged
violations against Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank, Human Rights
Watch said.  The Israeli human rights group Yesh Din
has documented the low levels of criminal investigations, prosecutions,
and convictions of soldiers despite the large number of allegedly
unlawful deaths.