Nine days after a coalition of human rights groups asked the Palestinian Authority and the Hamas government in Gaza to investigate alleged war crimes committed against Israeli civilians during Israel's most recent incursion into the Strip, Hamas has cleared itself of any responsibility.
The speed and result of the Hamas "investigation" is certain not to please Israeli officials or the authors of the Goldstone Report, which recommended that its findings of war crimes on both sides be turned over to the International Criminal Court if Israel and Hamas "failed to carry out credible, independent investigations," according to the AFP.
Thousands of Palestinians and a little more than a dozen Israelis were killed during the offensive, which lasted for around a month, between December 2008 and January 2009, and was dubbed Operation Cast Lead by Israel. The operation was ostensibly aimed at preventing Hamas from continuing its long-going, but relatively non-lethal, rocket bombardment campaign of southern Israel.
Hamas' internal investigation concluded that it and other armed groups "struck military targets and avoided civilian targets, and any accusations related to this concern errant fire," according to the AFP.
The U.N. General Assembly has called on the Palestinians and the Israelis to make a decision by Feb. 5 about whether they will conduct independent investigations. Israel's army, the Israel Defense Forces, is still conducting its own internal investigation, and a cabinet minister told the AP on Tuesday that the Israeli government had decided not to form an independent commission to investigate alleged Cast Lead war crimes.
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Categories: Human Rights, Israel & Palestine, War and Terrorism
Tags: Cast Lead, Hamas, International Criminal Court, Israel, Israel Defense Forces, Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Operation Cast Lead, Palestine, Richard Goldstone, United Nations
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