Smoke billows following an Israeli air strike in Rafah in the southern of Gaza Strip, on Aug. 19, 2014. A report Monday defended israel's handling of the 50-day war. File Photo by UPI/Ismael Mohamad |
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JERUSALEM, June 15 (UPI) -- The Israeli Foreign Ministry issued a report Monday, defending its 2014 military assault in Gaza, ahead of an imminent United Nations report.
The 280-page study of the 50-day war in Gaza indicates Israel actions were "lawful" and "legitimate," accentuating the government's claim it did not target civilians, despite U.N. contention that the majority of the 2,139 Palestinians killed in the war were civilians. It was released as the United Nations prepares to release its own report on Israeli behavior during the war; Israel did not cooperate with the U.N. inquiry, denouncing it as biased.
"The interesting thing is that the Israeli government has tried a new tactic, to give its own — one-sided perhaps, but its own — report before the U.N. would publish, so that Israel won't have only to react but will be able to lead the discussion," Tehilla Shartz Altshuler of the Jerusalem-based Israel Democracy Institute told the New York Times.
The Israeli report noted the strategy of Hamas, the political leadership in Gaza, was to "deliberately draw the hostilities into the urban terrain, and to use built-up areas and the presence of the civilian population for tactical advantage and political gain." It added that "numerous civilians were caught in the hostilities" but Israel "did not intentionally target civilians or civilian objects, but instead made "efforts, including beyond its legal obligations, to mitigate the risk of harm to civilians."
The report is an attempt to head off criticism likely to come after the release of the U.N. report, and charges of war crimes by the International Criminal Court (ICC), which has begun an inquiry into the war.
"It first of all counters the report of the (United Nations) Human Rights Council, and offers some balance to it for the staff of the ICC prosecutor's office to look at. And secondly it's this larger argument to be able to say the ICC has no mandate," commented Nathan Thrall of the Brussels-based International Crisis Group.
