Israel Rejects Call for War Crimes Enquiry
Rejecting the key recommendation of a UN report, Israel on Wednesday said it would not institute an independent inquiry into its conduct during the Gaza offensive last year and added that attempts to bring its soldiers before an international war crimes tribunal would be met with a diplomatic offensive, say media reports.
The UN report, released Tuesday said Israel used disproportionate firepower and a disregard for civilian deaths in the offensive, which killed 1400 Palestinians including scores of noncombatants and stripped Gaza with widespread damage.
The report said that if Israel doesn’t allow an independent investigation, the case should be referred to international war crimes prosecutors.
Israeli officials, through the five month investigation, had refused cooperate, saying it was ordered by a UN body with a clear anti-Israeli bias.
Government spokesman Mark Regev said Israel would not heed the call for an independent investigation and noted that army probes can be appealed in court.
“This report was conceived in sin and is the product of a union between propaganda and bias,” Regev was quoted as saying by agencies.
“Israel is a country with a fiercely independent judiciary … Everything done by the military in Israel is open to judicial review by the independent judiciary,” he added.
The UN team, headed by international prosecutor Richard Goldstone, concluded that both Israel and Gaza’s Islamic Hamas rulers were responsible for war crimes and possible crimes against humanity.
Israel launched the three-week war in December 2008 to end the rocket and mortar fire that has targeted the country’s south for several years now.
Thirteen Israelis, including four civilians also died in the conflict.
(Based on Internet Reports)
