The following excerpts are just a small selection from 130 paragraphs of what is commonly known as the 'Goldstone report'. I suggest readers to make themselves familiar with the entire text, which can be found in James Petras book entitled: "Warcrimes in Gaza and the Zionist Fifth Column in America".
The President of the Human Rights Council established the United Nations Fact Finding Mission in April 2009 and appointed Justice Richard Goldstone to head the Mission. Goldstone was a former judge of the Constitutional Court of South Africa and former Prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda. Three other appointed members were Prof. Christine Chinkin, Prof. of International Law of the London School of Economics and Political Science; Ms Hina Jilani, Advocate of the Supreme Court of Pakistan, also a member of the International Commission of Inquiry on Dafur ; and Colonel Desmond Travers, a former Officer in Ireland's Defence Force and member of the Board of Directors of the Institute for International Criminal Investigations.
The Mission repeatedly sought to obtain the cooperation of the Government of Israel. After numerous attempts had failed, the Mission sought and obtained the assistance of the Government of Egypt to enable it to enter the Gaza Strip through the Rafah crossing. (Blogger: This refusal in itself amounts already to an admission of guilt.)
The UN General Assembly endorsed the thorough documentation of Israel's war crimes and state terrorism revealed in the Goldstone Report with 114 votes and 18 against. The 18 votes against were - as could be expected - Israel and the United States, several East European client states and some insignificant island dependencies. United Nation endorsement represents over 80% of the world's population............
#27 The blockade comprises measures such as the restrictions on goods that can be imported into the Gaza and the closure of border crossings for people, goods and services, sometimes for days, including cuts on the provision of fuel and electricity. Gaza's economy is further severely affected by the reduction of the fishing zone open to the Palestinian fishermen and the establishment of a "buffer zone" along the border between Gaza and Israel which reduces the land available for agriculture and industrial activity. In addition to creating an emergency situation, the blockade significantly weakened the capacities of the population and of health, water and other public sectors to react to the emergency created by the military operations................
#28 The Mission holds the view that Israel continues to be duty-bound under the Fourth Geneva Convention and to the full extent of the means available to it to ensure the supply of foodstuff, medical and hospital items and others to meet the humanitarian needs of the population of the Gaza Strip qualification...................
#32 Israeli armed forces launched numerous attacks against buildings and persons of the Gaza authorities............On the information available to it, the Mission finds that the attacks on these buildings constituted deliberate attacks on civilian objects in violation of the rule of customary international humanitarian law whereby attacks must be strictly limited to military objectives. These facts further indicate the of the grave breach of extensive destruction of property, not justified by military necessity and carried out unlawfully and wantonly.....................
#38. The Mission also examined the precautions taken by Israeli forces in the context of three specific attacks they launched. On the 15 January2009, the UNRWA field office compound in Gaza City came under shelling with high explosive and white phosphorous munitions. The Mission notes that the attack was extremely dangerous, as the compound offered shelter to between 600 and 700 civilians and contained a huge fuel depot. The Israeli forces continued the attack over several hours in spite of having been fully alerted to the risks they created. The Mission concludes that Israeli armed forces violated the customary international law requirement to take all feasible precautions in the choice of means and method of attack with a view to avoiding and in any event minimizing incidental loss of civilian life, injury to civilians and damage to civilian objects....................
#39. The mission also finds that, on the same day, the Israeli forces directly and intentionally attacked the Al Quds Hospital in Gaza City and the adjacent ambulance depot with white phosphorus shells. The attack caused fires which took a whole day to extinguish and caused panic among the sick and wounded who had to be evacuated. The mission finds that no warning was given at any point of an imminent strike. On the basis of its investigation, the Mission rejects the allegation that fire was directed at Israeli fores from the Hospital......................
#42. In drawing legal conclusions on the attack against al-Fakhura junction, the Mission recognizes that for all armies proportionality
decisions, weighing the military advantages to be gained against the risk of killing civilians, will present very genuine dilemmas in certain cases. The Mission does not consider this to be such a case. The firing of at least four mortar shells to attempt to kill a small number of specified individuals in a setting where large numbers of civilians were going about their daily business and 1,368 people were sheltering nearby cannot meet the test of what a reasonable commander would have determined to be an acceptable loss of civilian life for the military advantage sought. The Mission considers thus the attack to have been indiscriminate in violation of international law, and to have violated the right to life of the Palestinian civilians killed in these incidents.......................
#43 The Mission investigated eleven incidents in which Israeli forces launched direct attacks against civilians with lethal outcome (Chapter XI) The cases examined in this part of the report are, with one exception, all cases in which he facts indicate no justifiable military objective pursued by the attack. The first two incidents are attacks against houses in the Samouni neighborhood south of Gaza City, including the shelling of a house in which Palestinian civilians had been forced to assemble by the Israeli forces. The following group of seven incidents concern the shooting of civilians while they were trying to leave their homes to walk to a safer place, waving white flags and in, in some of the cases, following an injunction from the Israeli forces to do so. The facts gathered by the Mission indicate that all the attacks occurred under circumstances in which the Israeli forces were in control of the area and had previously entered into contact with or at least observed the persons they subsequently attacked, so that they must have been aware of their civilian status. In the majority of these incidents, the consequences of the Israeli attacks against civilians were aggravated by their subsequent refusal to allow the evacuation of the wounded or permit access to ambulances...........
#44 These incidents indicate that the instructions given to the Israeli forces moving into Gaza provided for a low threshold for the use of lethal fire against the civilian population. The Mission found strong corroboration of this trend emerging from its fact-finding in the testimonies of Israeli soldiers collected in two publications it reviewed.........
#45 The Mission further examined an incident in which a mosque was targeted with a missile during the early evening prayer, resulting in the death of fifteen, and attack with flechette munition on a crowd of family and neighbours at a condolence tent, killing five. The Mission finds that both attacks constitute intentional attacks against civilian population and civilian objects...................
#50 Already at the beginning of the military operations, the Al Bader flour mill was the only flour mill in the Gaza Strip still operating. The flour ill was hit by a series of air strikes on 9 January 2009 after several false warnings had been issued on the previous days. The Mission finds that its destruction had no military justification.........From the facts it ascertained, the Mission finds there has been a violation of the grave breaches provisions of the Fourth Geneva Convention. Unlawful and wanton destruction which is not justified by military necessity amounts to a war crime. The Mission also finds hat the destruction of the mill was carried out for the purposes of customary international law and may constitute a war crime. The strike on the flour mill further constitutes a violation of human rights provisions regarding the right to adequate food and means of subsistence.................
#55. The Mission investigated four incidents in which Israeli forces coerced Palestinian civilian men at gun point to take part in house searches during the military operations(Chapter XIV). The Palestinian men were blindfolded and handcuffed as they were forced to enter houses ahead of the Israeli soldiers..........Published testimonies of Israeli soldiers who took part in the military operations confirm the continued use of this practice....................
#63. In the framing of Israeli military objectives with regard to the Gaza operation, the concept of Hamas 'supporting infrastructure' is particularly worrying as it appears to transform civilians and civilian objects into legitimate targets. Statements by Israeli political and military leaders prior to and during the military operations in Gaza indicate that the military conception of what was necessary in a war with Hamas view disproportionate destruction and creating the maximum disruption in the lives of many people as a legitimate means to achieve not only military but also political goals.....................
#67. As a result of the razing of farmland and the destruction of greenhouses, food insecurity is expected to further worsen in spite of the increased quantities of food items allowed into Gaza since the beginning of the military operations. Dependence on food assistance increases. Levels of stunting and thinness in children and of anaemia prevalence in children and pregnant women were worrying already before the military operations. ......... In the water and sanitation sector, the destruction of the infrastructure (such as the destruction of the Namar wells and the attack against the water treatment plant described in Chapter XII), aggravated the preexistent situation..........
#68. The number of persons suffering from mental health problems is also bound to increase. The Mission investigated a number of incidents in which adults and children witnessed the killing of their loved ones. Doctors at Gaza Community Mental Health Programme gave information to the Mission on psychosomatic disorders, on a widespread state of alienation in the population, and on "numbness" as a result of severe loss. They told the Mission that these conditions were likely to in turn increase the readiness to embrace violence and extremism. (suicide bombers ?) They also told the Mission that 20 percent of children in the Gaza strip suffer Post Traumatic Stress Disorders..................
#74. The condition of life in Gaza, resulting from deliberate actions of the Israeli forces and declared policies of the Government of Israel - as they were presented by its authorized and legitimate representatives - with regards to the Gaza Strip before, during and after the military operations, cumulatively indicate the intention to inflict collective punishment on the people of the Gaza Strip in violation of international humanitarian law.................
#75. The Mission considered whether the series of acts that deprive Palestinians in the Gaza Strip of their means of sustenance, employment, housing and water, that deny their freedom of movement and their right to leave and enter their own country, that limit their access a court of law and an effective remedy, could amount to persecution, a crime against humanity. From the facts available to it, the Mission is of the view that some of the actions of the Government of Israel might justify a competent court finding that crimes against humanity have been committed.
#75. The Mission considered whether the series of acts that deprive Palestinians in the Gaza Strip of their means of sustenance, employment, housing and water, that deny their freedom of movement and their right to leave and enter their own country, that limit their access a court of law and an effective remedy, could amount to persecution, a crime against humanity. From the facts available to it, the Mission is of the view that some of the actions of the Government of Israel might justify a competent court finding that crimes against humanity have been committed.
(to be continued)
