Debate on Goldstone Report - UN
Human Rights Council - Emergency Session -
October 16, 2009
Videos - Bill Moyers talks with
Justice Richard Goldstone, who headed up the
controversial UN Human Rights Council investigation
into fighting in Gaza between Israel and Hamas. >>>
In an interview with Al Jazeera's
Shihab Rattansi, Justice Richard Goldstone
challenged the US government to justify its claims
that his findings are flawed and biased.
For: Argentina,
Brazil, China, Russia,
Bahrain, Bangladesh,
Bolivia, Chile, Cuba,
Djbouti, Egypt, Ghana,
India, Indonesia,
Jordan, Mauritius,
Nicaragua, Nigeria,
Pakistan, Philippines,
Qatar, Saudi Arabia,
Senegal, South Africa
and Zambia
Against: US,
Hungary, Italy,
Netherlands, Slovakia
and Ukraine
Abstentions:
Belgium, Bosnia,
Burkina-Faso, Cameroon,
Gabon, Japan, Mexico,
Norway, South Korea,
Slovenia and Uruguay
No vote: UK,
France, Madagascar,
Kyrgyzstan and Angola
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
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 a 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
than 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 was
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.
For: Argentina,
Brazil, China, Russia,
Bahrain, Bangladesh,
Bolivia, Chile, Cuba,
Djbouti, Egypt, Ghana,
India, Indonesia,
Jordan, Mauritius,
Nicaragua, Nigeria,
Pakistan, Philippines,
Qatar, Saudi Arabia,
Senegal, South Africa
and Zambia