Netanyahu dismisses UN accusations over Gaza war

A UN report has prompted relatives of four Palestinian boys to demand justice.

Palestinian children play in the rubble of building on June 22, 2015 in Gaza City that were destroyed during 50-day war between Israel and Hamas-militants in the summer of 2014. A widely anticipated United Nations report said both Israel and Palestinian militants may have committed war crimes during last year's Gaza war, decrying "unprecedented" devastation and human suffering. AFP PHOTO / MAHMUD HAMS

Israel has rejected a UN report that identifies prospective war crimes committed in last year’s war in Gaza, as the relatives of four Palestinian boys killed in one of the most notorious episodes renewed calls for justice.

A commission of inquiry convened by the UN Human Rights Council accused the Israeli military and Palestinian militants of breaching international humanitarian and human rights law during the fighting that killed nearly 2300 people.

But Israel received the sternest criticism over the deaths of civilians in the heavily populated ­enclave to its south, the commission saying there were “strong indi­cations” some attacks were disproportionate, amounting to possible war crimes, and that the Israeli military might not have done all that was feasible to prevent the bloodshed.

The Palestinian group Hamas, which calls the shots in Gaza, was blasted over “inherently indiscriminate’’ rocket and mortar fire into Israel and the execution of suspected collaborators. These, too, were possible war crimes, the report found.

However, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said his country did no more than defend itself against a “terror organisation which calls for its destruction and that itself carries out war crimes’’, referring to Hamas.

Israel “does not commit war crimes’’, he insisted.

Israel’s Foreign Ministry said the UNHRC report was politically motivated and morally flawed, having been commissioned by a “notoriously biased institution’’.

Hamas welcomed the findings, despite criticism of its conduct, declaring that the “clear condemnation’’ of Israel required action by the International Criminal Court in The Hague, where the Palestinians are pushing for a war crimes prosecution against Israel.

The relatives of four Palestinian boys killed on a Gaza beach at the height of the war last July called for the ICC to take up the report.

The children, all cousins, were hit by explosive rounds a week after Israel attacked in retaliation at missile strikes on its territory from Gaza. “We will go after Israel in international institutions,’’ one of the fathers told the BBC.

The commission chairwoman, Mary McGowan Davis — the New York judge who has been under fire from Israelis after the original chairman stepped down over a conflict of interest and it emerged she had co-authored a previous, critical report on Israel’s actions in Gaza — said both sides faced “credible allegations’’ of war crimes.

However, the commission acknowledged in the report that it relied on a “reasonable ground’’ standard of proof, short of that used in criminal proceedings.

Israel refused to co-operate with the inquiry while Hamas did not to respond to written questions from UN investigators.

“The commission therefore does not make any conclusions with regard to the responsibility of specific individuals for alleged violations of international law,’’ it reported.

The report said a higher proportion of the 2251 Palestinian deaths were of civilians than the Israelis had acknowledged in their own account of the war, ­released last week by the Foreign Ministry to get out in front of the damaging UNHRC findings.

A total of 551 Palestinian children and 299 women died. Six civilians lost their lives in Israel, along with 67 soldiers.

Palestinian militants fired 6634 rockets and mortars at or into Israel and the discovery of tunnels from Gaza incited “great anxiety’’ among Israelis that these could be used to storm farms and towns near the fortified frontier.

The Palestinian attacks were dwarfed by the firepower unleashed by Israel’s defence forces.

The air force carried out more than 6000 strikes on Gaza, “many of which hit residential buildings’’, while one NGO estimated that five times more high-explosive artillery shells were let off by the Israelis than in the 2008-09 Gaza operation.

The Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs found that at least 142 Palestinian families had three or more loved ones killed in the same incident, amounting to 742 deaths.