UN: Israel and Palestinians may have committed war crimes

The United Nations Independent Commission of Inquiry on the summer 2014 Israeli military offensive against Gaza conflict published a report on Monday accusing both Israel and Palestinian armed groups of possibly committing war crimes.

"The extent of the devastation and human suffering in Gaza was unprecedented and will impact generations to come," said the chair of the commission, Justice Mary McGowan Davis, adding that, "there is also ongoing fear in Israel among communities who come under regular threat".

During the 51-day Israeli military offensive, named Operation Protective Edge, Israel carried out more than 6,000 airstrikes, and fired around 50,000 tank and artillery shells.

"The death toll (in Gaza) alone speaks volumes: 2,251 Palestinians were killed, including 1,462 Palestinian civilians, of whom 299 were women and 551 children; and 11,231 Palestinians, including 3,540 women and 3,436 children, were injured, of whom 10 per cent suffered permanent disability as a result."

During the same period, Palestinian armed groups fired 4,881 rockets and 1,753 mortars towards Israel.

"The death of six civilians in Israel and 67 soldiers and the injury of up to 1,600 others were also the tragic result of the hostilities."

The commission was also troubled that 27 Palestinians were killed and 3,020 injured between June and August 2014 in the West Bank including East Jerusalem.

"The number killed in these three months was equivalent to the total for the whole of 2013," said the commission in a press statement.

"The commission is concerned about what appears to be the increasing use of live ammunition for crowd control by the Israeli Security Forces, which raises the likelihood of death or serious injury."

The report accused both Israel and the Palestinian armed groups in Gaza of "impunity," calling on Israel to "break with its lamentable track record in holding wrong doers accountable," adding that "accountability on the Palestinian side is also woefully inadequate".

The statement said "Israel will consider the report in light of these essential failings. It would encourage all fair-minded observers to do the same."

The report pointed out that hundreds of Palestinian civilians had been killed in their own homes, especially women and children.

"The fact that Israel did not revise its practice of air-strikes, even after their dire effects on civilians became apparent, raises questions of whether this was part of a broader policy which was at least tacitly approved at the highest level of government," the commission said in a statement.

The report also criticised the "indiscriminate" nature of Palestinian rockets and mortars.

Israel, meanwhile, denounced the UN rights council as biased.

"This report was commissioned by a notoriously biased institution," an Israeli foreign ministry statement said, referring to the UN Human Rights Council, which commissioned the report.

And Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu insisted that Israel "does not commit war crimes".  

"Israel defends itself against a terror organisation which calls for its destruction and that itself carries out war crimes," Netanyahu said in a statement, referring to the Palestinian movement Hamas, which rules the Gaza Strip.

Meanwhile, Hamas saluted the "condemnation" of Israel in the UN report.

"Hamas welcomes the report's condemnation of the Zionist occupier for its war crimes during the last war against Gaza," said Fawzi Barhum, a spokesman for the Palestinian movement.

The commission comprises Justice Mary McGowan Davis, from the United States, and Dr Doudou Diene, from Senegal.

The report will be formally presented to the UN Human Rights Council on 29 June 2015 in Geneva.

The commission called on states to "actively support the work of the International Criminal Court in relation to the Occupied Palestinian Territory".