On April 3 2009, a fact finding mission was established by the President of the UN Human Rights Council to investigate all violations of international human rights and humanitarian law that might have been committed by both Israelis and Palestinians during the IDF's Operation Cast Lead, which lasted from December 27, 2008 to January 18, 2009. The mission members recently released a 575-page report, found here.
The author of the report is Justice Richard Goldstone, interviewed by Al-Jazeera in the attached video. Justice Goldstone is a former judge of the Constitutional Court of South Africa and former Prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda.
The mission's other three appointed members are:
Professor Christine Chinkin, Professor of International Law at the London School of Economics and Political Science, who was a member of the high-level fact-finding mission to Beit Hanoun (2008);
Ms. Hina Jilani, Advocate of the Supreme Court of Pakistan and former Special Representative of the Secretary-General on the situation of human rights defenders, who was a member of the International Commission of Inquiry on Darfur (2004);
Colonel Desmond Travers, a former Officer in Ireland's Defense Forces and member of the Board of Directors of the Institute for International Criminal Investigations.
The report is detailed and comprehensive, containing analysis of "36 specific incidents in Gaza, as well as a number of others in the West Bank and Israel." The Mission was unbiased and analytical; it went through "188 individual interviews, reviewed more 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."
As noted in the report the decision to hear participants from Israel and the West Bank in Geneva 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, while Palestinian authorities in both Gaza and the West Bank cooperated with them.
In a different report, B'Tselem, a leading Israeli human rights group, compiled numbers of people that died after months of research by field workers. The B'Tselem report shows that around 1,387 Palestinians died; and more than half of the dead, 773 people, were civilians, of which 320 were children and 109 were women. The B'Tselem report also documents that three Israeli civilians were killed by Palestinian rockets and "one member of the security forces by rockets fired into southern Israel, and 5 soldiers in the Gaza Strip. Another 4 soldiers were killed by friendly fire." The B'Tselem report can be found here.
The UN Goldstone report confirms the findings of B'Tselem, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch. None of these organizations are in any way associated or supporters of Hamas. All of these organizations have also found Hamas guilty of committing war crimes by firing rockets aimlessly at Israeli civilians.
Human Rights Watch Report
Israel has refused to cooperate with the fact finding investigations led by the UN, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch or B'Tselem and refuses to be a signatory to the International Criminal Court to avoid any accountability.
Stay tuned for Part II: I will interview Ali Abunimah, the cofounder of Electronic Intifada and author of "One Country: A Bold Proposal to End the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict," which bravely revives the idea of one state shared by Palestinians and Israelis as the only remaining solution.
