Israel: Army Commander Undermines Claims on "Proper Conduct" in Gaza War

With two Israeli army officers, "disciplined" for firing artillery shells towards a densely-populated area near a UN compound, still not facing a criminal investigation by the Israeli Defense Forces, United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon confirmed on Thursday that he had received a full internal report from the Israelis.

The Israeli Foreign Ministry issued a statement on Friday:

This document completely expresses Israel's commitment to conduct an honest internal probe according to the standards of international law. Despite the difficult conditions of fighting against Hamas terror, Israel has stringently abided by international norms and will continue to do in the future - though our foremost obligation is to protect our citizens.

However, The Independent of London reported a confession from a high-ranking Israeli official who talked to Israel's Yedhiot Ahronot. The officer said that the Israeli army went beyond its previous rules of engagement, concerning the protection of civilian lives, to minimise military casualties during the Operation Cast Lead. The senior commander said:

Means and intentions is a definition that suits an arrest operation in the Judaea and Samaria [West Bank] area... We need to be very careful because the IDF [Israel Defence Forces] was already burnt in the second Lebanon war from the wrong terminology. The concept of means and intentions is taken from different circumstances. Here [in Cast Lead] we were not talking about another regular counter-terrorist operation. There is a clear difference.

According to the newspaper, a more junior officer who served during the operation described the new policy as one of "literally zero risk to the soldiers" as a part of the policy to avoid the heavy military casualties of the 2006 Lebanon war.

UPDATED Israel: The Government Responds to the Goldstone Report on Gaza

UPDATED 2 FEBRUARY: Haaretz reports that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu tried to persuade Defense Minister Ehud Barak to accept an Israeli investigation into civilian deaths during Operation Cast Lead. However, officials said that both Barak and Gabi Ashkenazi, the Chief of Staff of Israel Defense Forces, refused to yield authority to investigators from outside the defense establishment.

"The prime minister knows what he wants to do on this matter - but he does not want to bring the matter to the cabinet," a senior source close to Netanyahu said.

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With the General Assembly convening on 5 February 5 to discuss progress on the Goldstone Report and its recommendations, Israel submitted its response to United Nations over last year's Gaza War.

Palestine: Hamas Refuses An Independent Commission on Gaza “War Crimes”

The committee will reportedly have the authority to summon everyone who was in charge of the IDF investigations and any civilian who took part in the main deliberations. However, it will not have the authority to question operational commanders. The committee is likely to take testimony of lower-ranked officials, ensuring that there is no basis to send officials to international courts.


The Israeli Government said it is preparing to appoint a committee focusing on two main areas: 1) the quality of the investigations conducted by the Israel Defense Forces into incidents and 2) decisions taken by the Cabinet, the Security Cabinet and the IDF General Staff over the use of force. The first area will establish whether the internal investigations met the relevant international standards and the second will determine whether there is a basis to Goldstone's claims that the operation was planned in advance as a punitive campaign against the civilian population in the Gaza Strip.

Meanwhile, Mahmoud Abbas, the leader of the Palestinian Authority, announced  that he has decided to establish an independent panel of inquiry to evaluate the accusations on human rights violations carried out by his PA security forces during the Gaza War.

On the political front, Israel slammed the Goldstone Report's "misrepresentations" in a written response submitted to UN chief Ban Ki-moon, "Gaza Operation Investigations: Update":

As Israel has clarified before, Israel disagrees with the findings and recommendations of the Report, which reflect many misunderstandings and fundamental mistakes with regard to the Gaza Operation, its purposes, and Israel’s legal system.

Israel is committed to ensuring that every such incident is fully and fairly investigated, to ensure that lessons can be learned and that, if justified, criminal or disciplinary proceedings initiated.

Defense Minister Ehud Barak added that the Goldstone Report was "distorted, false, and irresponsible":

This morning we handed the UN a report of the investigations and operations that took place during Operation Cast Lead. This report stresses that the IDF is like no other army, both from a moral standpoint as well as from a professional standpoint.

All of the soldiers and officers whom we sent to battle need to know that the state of Israel stands behind them even on the day after.

Israel: Netanyahu's Speech on Evil at Auschwitz

Last Wednesday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared, in front of the Auschwitz extermination camp ,that the world must learn from the Holocaust to unite against new threats. His reference to "impending danger" and an "existential threat", as well as "murderous evil [which] must be stopped as soon as possible, before it can realize its schemes", was of course aimed at the "nuclear threat" of Iran.

To prevent this "evil", Netanyahu emphasized the need of a strong state and a powerful army and added:

We must warn of the impending danger to the rest of the world and at the same time to be ready to defend ourselves.

We the Jewish people learned the lesson [of the Holocaust] well after we lost one-third of our people.

I pledge as prime minister that we will never let the hand of evil harm our people and our state, never again.

All enlightened nations must absorb this lesson.

At the end of his speech, Netanyahu set out the "holy" defense line and said that he would not to allow a "new Amalek", a reference to a Biblical king who waged war against the Jews,  to threaten again to destroy the Jewish nation.