News

The surprising thing about the United Nations' 575-page report on allegations of war crimes in last year's Israeli attack on Hamas was that it spent so much space evaluating Hamas and concluding that groups under its control carried out acts that “amounted to war crimes, and possibly crimes against humanity.”

Considering that the mandate of the fact-finding mission was viewed by many as “one-sided” – intended to look only into allegations of Israeli violations – Israel can be pleased that while it came down hard on the Jewish state, it also came down hard on Hamas.

The mission found that Israel's 22-day military campaign, launched in the wake of hundreds of rockets fired on Israel from Gaza in the weeks leading up to the December-January conflict, was disproportionate in the extreme.

“The Israeli operations were carefully planned in all their phases as a deliberately disproportionate attack designed to punish, humiliate and terrorize a civilian population,” the report said.

The assault left about 1,400 Gazans dead, including hundreds of civilians, and about 5,000 wounded. Thirteen Israelis were killed, including three civilians and four soldiers killed by “friendly fire,” and dozens were wounded.

Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor said Tuesday the UN body “dealt a huge blow to governments seeking to defend their citizens from terror.”

He said Israe... >>>