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The United Nations Fact Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict was created by the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) during the Gaza War to investigate possible Israeli violations of international law against the Palestinian people. Its mandate was later reinterpreted to include all violations committed in the context of military operations in Gaza during the war.

The mission was established on April 3, 2009, by the President of the UNHRC. Judge Richard Goldstone of South Africa was appointed to head the mission. The other members of the mission were Christine Chinkin of the United Kingdom, Hina Jilani of Pakistan and Desmond Travers of Ireland.

The resolution mandating the mission led to difficulties in the search for a mission head. Mary Robinson, former United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, refused an offered appointment, stating that the resolution adopted by UN Human Rights Council was one-sided and "guided not by human rights but by politics"; Goldstone initially refused his appointment for the same reason, only agreeing after the mandate was reinterpreted.

The mission's final report was released 15 September 2009, and accused both Palestinian militants and Israeli Defence Forces of war crimes and possible crimes against humanity. On 16 October 2009, The UN Human Rights Council endorsed the report. Both Hamas and the Israeli government rejected the report's findings as being biased. Mary Robinson, former High Commissioner of the HRC wrote that "the sake of human rights and peace in the region, my hope is that the international community will bear witness to these circumstances, consider Judge Goldstone’s report in its entirety and press for accountability for the most serious crimes" The reactions from government and organisations was mixed. Some urged endorsement of the report and implementation of its recommendations. Others arguing that the resolution, the report or both were flawed, politically motivated or imbalanced.

Fact finding mission

Founding Resolution

In response to the Gaza War, on 12 January 2009, the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHCR) adopted Resolution S-9/1, calling to "dispatch an urgent, independent international fact-finding mission, to investigate all violations of international human rights law and international humanitarian law by the occupying Power, Israel, against the Palestinian people, particularly in the occupied Gaza Strip, due to the current aggression, and calls upon Israel not to obstruct the process of investigation and to fully cooperate with the mission."

The Council also ordered a series of periodic reports aimed to assess the human rights situation in the occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT) following Israel's military operation. The first of the reports was set to be presented to the Council in September 2009. The report, compiled by UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay, alleges that Israeli forces breached laws of armed conflict by attacking indiscriminately civilians in at least several incidents, by targeting civilian and protected facilities, by damaging large number of buildings, by failing to provide unquestionably effective warning to civilians at risk and by failing to implement rules of international humanitarian law regarding military occupation. The report also states that indiscriminate rocket attacks, as well as ill-treatment and extrajudicial execution of detainees by Palestinian armed groups, constitute violations of laws of war. Navi Pillay also expressed a hope that the upcoming report by the fact-finding mission lead by Judge Goldstone would serve as a basis for indicting the alleged perpetrators of the war crimes in the International Criminal Court.

Structure of mission

Mandate

The mandate of the fact finding mission was formalized on 3 April 2009 such that it would investigate both all violations of international law by the parties involved. Its mandate was:

"to investigate all violations of international human rights law and international humanitarian law that might have been committed at any time in the context of the military operations that were conducted in Gaza during the period from 27 December 2008 and 18 January 2009, whether before, during or after.”

Critics (prof. Irwin Cotler, NGO UN Watch, rabbi dr. Goldstein, lawer A. Baker) note that the mandate as formulated above originated only as an oral agreement between judge Goldstone and the president of the UNHRC, without formally superseding the original one-sided resolution of the Council that served as a founding basis of the mission.

Composition

According to the mission's report, "The President appointed Justice Richard Goldstone, former judge of the Constitutional Court of South Africa and former Prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda, to head the Mission. The other three appointed members were: 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); and Colonel Desmond Travers, a former Officer in Ireland’s Defence Forces and member of the Board of Directors of the Institute for International Criminal Investigations."

Critics (NGO UN Watch, rabbi dr. Goldstein, groups of UK and Canadian laywers) note that mission members, particularly prof. Chinkin, expressed public opinions concerning the Gaza conflict prior accepting the appointment, and thus should had been recused from the committee to preserve impartiality of the mission.

Investigation

The head of the mission Judge Goldstone said that in the course of the investigation the committee conducted 188 interviews, reviewed 10,000 pages of documents and inspected 1,200 photographs.

Israel refused to cooperate with the investigation, citing alleged anti-Israel bias in the UNHRC and the mission's one-sided founding resolution. Israel also stated that the mission would be unable to question Palestinian militants who fired rockets at Israel. The team was deprived of access to military sources and victims of Hamas rockets in Israel, and denied Gaza Strip entrance via Israel.

According to contemporary Western media reports, Hamas had been very cooperative with the team, nevertheless, Goldstone has pointed out that in some areas of information the committee did not receive full cooperation from the Palestinians, either. Goldstone dismissed as "baseless" allegations that the team had been escorted by Hamas minders who could have influenced witnesses.

At the end of a four-day fact-finding trip to Gaza, the head of the team expressed his shock by the scale of the destruction in Gaza areas. Goldstone refused to comment on the ongoing investigation's content, but announced that the team will hold public hearings with the war's victims later in June, in Gaza and Geneva. Alex Whiting, a professor at Harvard law school, said cases like the one being probed by the UN inquiry team are hard to investigate, especially without military records.

On 6 July, private Israeli witnesses and representatives testified in front of the committee, describing several years' lives under rocket attacks' threat. The last to take the floor was Noam Shalit, father of the Israeli captive soldier Gilad Shalit. Later that day, pro-Palestinian witnesses and experts from Israel and the West Bank testified. The next day, a military expert testified on weapons use by Hamas and Israel and an international law expert testified at Goldstone’s Gaza hearings. Following the two-days session, Richard Goldstone said that the investigation entered its final phase, but noted, however, that it was too soon to conclude that war crimes were committed during the conflict.

Findings

On 15 September 2009, a lengthy 574 page report by Judge Goldstone's UN inquiry team was released, officially titled "Human Rights in Palestine and Other Occupied Arab Territories: Report of the United Nations Fact Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict".

The report concluded that the Israel Defence Force (IDF) and Palestinian armed groups committed war crimes and possibly crimes against humanity. While the report condemned violations by both sides, it more strongly criticized Israeli actions. Judge Goldstone clarified that the reports' findings are the result of the fact-finding mission, not investigation, emphasizing conditional nature of the conclusions. He added later that the mission did not conduct a judicial investigation, its findings do not amount to the criminal standards and the information obtained would not be admissible as evidence in a criminal court.

Accusations of war crimes on the part of the Israel Defense Forces

Blockade of Gaza allegations

The report stated that the IDF committed war crimes and possibly crimes against humanity for its serious violations of international human rights and humanitarian law, that the Israeli military action was directed at the Gaza population as a whole and that the Gaza blockade represents a continuance of an overall policy of disproportionate force aimed at collective punishment. The report read, "Families are still living amid the rubble of their former homes after the attacks ended, as reconstruction has been impossible due to the continuing blockade (of Gaza by Israel)".

Civilian targeting allegations

The report disputes Israel's claim that the Gaza war would have been conducted as a response to rockets fired from the Gaza Strip, saying that at least in part the war was targeted against the "people of Gaza as a whole" The report also says that Israel’s military assault on Gaza was designed to "humiliate and terrorize a civilian population, radically diminish its local economic capacity both to work and to provide for itself, and to force upon it an ever increasing sense of dependency and vulnerability”.

The report focused on 36 cases that it said constituted a representative sample. In 11 of these episodes, it said the Israeli military carried out direct attacks against civilians, including some in which civilians were shot “while they were trying to leave their homes to walk to a safer place, waving white flags”. According to the report, another alleged war crime committed by IDF include “wanton” destruction of food production, water and sewerage facilities; the report also asserts that some attacks, which were supposedly aimed to kill small number of combatants amidst significant numbers of civilians, were disproportionate.

In one incident, the report stated that the Israelis intentionally bombed the al-Maqadmah mosque on the outskirts of Jabilyah when between 200 and 300 men and women attended for their evening prayer, with fifteen people dying. Goldstone has said, “Assuming that weapons were stored in the mosque, it would not be a war crime to bomb it at night... It would be a war crime to bomb it during the day when 350 people are praying.”

The report concluded that Israel violated the Fourth Geneva Convention by targeting civilians, which it labeled "a grave breach".

White phosphorus allegations

The report found that Israeli forces had been systematically reckless in their use of white phosphorus. The writers highlighted the Israeli attack on the UN Relief and Works Agency compound in Gaza City on 15 January, the attack on the Al Quds hospital, and the attack on the Al Wafa hospital, each of which involved using white phosphorus. They described its use as disproportionate or excessive under international law. More generally, the UN report recommended that "serious consideration should be given to banning the use of white phosphorus in built-up areas.”

The Israeli government had initially denied using the munitions after The Times broke the story about the issue. The government later admitted its use but insisted that the mode of this use was restricted to that which has been universally accepted as legitimate in battle situations and did not target civilians nor unduly put them at risk.

Human shields allegations

The report also accused Israel of using Palestinians as “human shields” and torturing detainees.

Accusations of war crimes on the part of Palestinian armed groups

The report also stated there is evidence that Palestinian armed groups committed war crimes and possibly crimes against humanity by deliberately launching rockets and firing mortars into Israel, calculated to kill civilians and damage civilian structures. The report accused Palestinian armed groups of causing psychological trauma to the civilians within the range of the rockets. It also concluded that killings and abuses of members of the Fatah political movement amount to a “serious violation of human rights”.

Recommendations

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Israel should pay reparations

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The report recommended, inter alia, that Israel pay reparations to Palestinians living in Gaza for property damaged in the conflict.

Referral to International Criminal Court

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The report called for the Security Council to refer the matter to the International Criminal Court (ICC) if the investigations are not conducted properly.

Reactions

Reactions to the resolution

The UN announced in the spring of 2009 that it has commissioned a team of experts, led by South African prosecutor Richard Goldstone, to investigate whether Israel and Hamas committed war crimes during the Gaza war.

Former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Mary Robinson initially called for an investigation of Israel's actions via co-signing to an open letter to the UN, which called for a “prompt, independent and impartial investigation that would provide a public record of gross violations of international humanitarian law committed and provide recommendations on how those responsible for crimes should be held to account". The signatories also expressed that they were “shocked to the core” by the damage inflicted during Israel’s three-week offensive.

Robinson was, though, disappointed by the wording of the original resolution which focused on Israel's actions and not those of Hamas. For this reason she turned down an offer to head the fact finding mission. Explaining her position, she said:

"...unfortunately, the Human Rights Council passed a resolution seeking a fact-finding mission to only look at what Israel had done, and I don’t think that’s a human rights approach. We need an inquiry to look at the violations of international humanitarian law by—potential violations by all sides."

Following the release of the report, she added that:

"I decided that I could not undertake the mission for these reasons. I am aware that Judge Goldstone, a dedicated and unimpeachable human rights lawyer and advocate, shared similar concerns when he was initially approached. But he was able to work with the Council’s president to secure an agreement that he felt confident would permit the mandate to be interpreted in such a way as to allow his team to address the actions taken by both parties to the conflict."

Professor of Law Irwin Cotler, member of Liberal Party of Canada, former Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada, past president of the Canadian Jewish Congress and prominent Human rights activist also expressed disappointment with the wording of the original resolution saying it was "deeply one-sided and flawed", arguing that the resolution begins by assuming what the inquiry it mandated was supposedly meant to determine.

Goldstone himself revealed that he had initially refused his own appointment for this very reason. He quoted Goldstone saying: "More than hesitate, I initially refused to become involved in any way , on the basis of what seemed to me to be a biased, uneven-handed resolution of the UN Human Rights Council". Goldstone was able though to have the official mandate of the fact finding mission changed to allow for a focus on both Israeli and Palestinian militant violations of international law.

The Executive Director of the Israeli B'Tselem human rights group also criticized the Human Rights Council accusing it of bias saying that it "has an inappropriate, disproportionate fixation with Israel". She further stated that the Human Rights Council is "a political body made up of diplomats, not human rights experts, which means that the powerful states are never going to come under scrutiny the way the powerless will. So China, Russia and the US will never have commission of inquiry, regardless of how their crimes rank relative to Israeli crimes". Israel has stated that UNHRC, which commissioned the investigation, has a history of bias against Israel and ascribed its refusal to cooperate with the mission to its one-sided founding resolution.

Whereas the initial resolution mandate was to investigate transgressions by Israel, Goldstone agreed to lead the mission only after the mandate was informally expanded to include all parties to the Gaza conflict and not only by Israel's. Nevertheless, Goldstone later described as "tiresome and inept" allegations forwarded by US secretary of state Hillary Clinton that the mandate had not been broadened to cover violations by all parties.

UN Watch, the chief rabbi of South Africa Dr. Warren Goldstein and Professor Irwin Cotler note that despite the fact that the President of the UNHRC altered the mandate of the committee to examine conduct of both sides of the conflict, the mission's finding resolution was not formally superseded by UNHRC at its June session and the council's president does not possess the powers to legislate them on his own.

Reactions to the composition of the mission

General

United Nations watchdog UN Watch, a fully integrated partner of the American Jewish Committee, said: "no one has ever disputed that the Arab-controlled Human Rights Council deliberately selected individuals who had made up their mind well in advance – not only that Israel was guilty, but that a democratic state with an imperfect but respected legal system should be considered the same as, or worse than, a terrorist group".

Regarding Richard Goldstone

Human Rights Watch applauded the selection of Goldstone to head the mission, saying that "Justice Goldstone's reputation for fairness and integrity is unmatched, and his investigation provides the best opportunity to address alleged violations by both Hamas and Israel". Before accepting the lead of the committee, judge Goldstone was a member of Human Rights Watch, but resigned in 2009 supposedly after a conflict of interest was alleged by Jerusalem-based NGO Monitor. Judge Goldstone, together with colonel Travis and Hina Jilani, signed an open letter, published 16 March 2009, addressed to United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and the United Nations Security Council Ambassadors, expressing "shock" over the events in Gaza and asking to hold those who perpetrated "gross violations of the laws of war," "gross violations of international humanitarian law" and "targeting of civilians" to account. NGO Eye on the UN and the chief rabbi of South Africa Dr. Goldstein note that this statement constitute an expression of the public opinion concerning the Gaza conflict, made before the work of the mission has begun, thus violating provisions for impartiality of the fact-finding missions.

Regarding Christine Chinkin

Before being selected for the mission, professor Chinkin signed an editorial published in the Sunday Times in January 2009 calling Israel's operation in Gaza "an act of aggression", stating that "invasion and bombardment of Gaza amounts to collective punishment of Gaza’s 1.5m inhabitants contrary to international humanitarian and human rights law", and adding that "the blockade of humanitarian relief, the destruction of civilian infrastructure, and preventing access to basic necessities such as food and fuel, are prima facie war crimes".

In August 2009, Geneva-based NGO UN Watch submitted a petition to the UN, calling to disqualify Chinkin over prior statements she made that bring her impartiality in question. UN Watch further noted that in a May 2009 meeting with Geneva NGOs, Chinkin denied that her impartiality was compromised, saying that her statement only addressed jus ad bellum, and not jus in bello; however, says UN Watch, the statement not only determined that "Israel’s actions amount to aggression, not self-defence," but additionally charged that they were "contrary to international humanitarian and human rights law," and constituted "prima facie war crimes."

The inquiry members rejected the petition and said that on the possible violations of humanitarian law during the fighting, which are the only focus of the mission, the letter co-signed by Chinkin "had expressed no view". The members further wrote in their reply that the fact-finding mission cannot be considered a judicial or even a quasi-judicial proceeding. Goldstone said that the letter signed by Chinkin could have been the grounds for disqualification, had the mission be a judicial inquiry.

Hillel Neuer, director of UN Watch, said that the argument implying that the inquiry is somehow exempt from the impartiality rule defies logic, morality and established international law.

Two groups, a group of UK lawyers and academics and a group of Canadian lawyers, pronounced separately their support for the UN Watch request that Prof. Chinkin be disqualified from the United Nations Human Rights Council’s fact-finding mission on the Gaza conflict and expressed their disappointment that the well-founded request was rejected by the mission.

Reactions to the final report

Involved parties

United Nations

The UN high commissioner for human rights, Navi Pillay, endorsed the report. She stated she supported the report's recommendations, including its call for urgent action to counter impunity – meaning that Israel and Hamas must investigate and prosecute those who committed war crimes. She also contended that "holding war criminals accountable and respect for human rights are not obstacles to peace, but rather the preconditions on which trust and, ultimately, a durable peace can be built."

The UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has urged "credible" investigations by both sides into the conduct of the Gaza conflict "without delay".

Israel

Israeli Foreign Ministry officials responded to the report by initiating contacts with Security Council members in order to dissuade them from referring Israelis to the ICC.

In the initial response to the fact-finding mission's report, issued on 24 September 2009, Israeli Government criticizes several aspects of the report. Among them are suggested lack of impartiality of at least one of its members, cherry-picking of certain incidents, treating Israeli official and military position as inherently unreliable while viewing Palestinian official's statement as credible, dismissal and reinterpretation of evidencies and statements that might incriminate Hamas, picking and choosing sources for political effect, misstatements of facts and laws, simplistic approach to complex military reality during warfare in the urban environment and one-sided recommendations. Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman said: "The Goldstone Commission is a commission established with the aim of finding Israel guilty of crimes ahead of time, was dispatched by countries in which the terms 'human rights' and 'combat ethics' are unknown". He added that "the IDF was forced to deal with the lowest form of terrorists that set themselves the goal of killing women and children hiding behind women and children. The state of Israel will continue to protect its citizens from the attacks of the terrorists and the terror organizations, and will continue to protect its soldiers from hypocritical and distorted attacks."

In an interview with Haaretz, Israeli deputy PM Dan Meridor suggested that Israel might establish an independent committee to investigate claims contained in Goldstone's report.

Hamas

Hamas officials were reported preparing legal responses to the accusations in a UN fact-finding mission's report. Talking to Xinhua, they told that a team of legal experts is working "to present clarifications to Goldstone's committee because its members have not had complete information", intending to "put evidences that prove the opposite to Hamas' and the resistance factions' accusations". In October, Gaza official announced that Hamas is preparing a committee to investigate allegations that prisoners under de facto local police control were shot during the War. The official added that the Goldstone report did not single out Hamas, as it "was all Palestinian factions who launched projectiles".

The de facto Prime Minister in Gaza urged world powers to embrace the report and to use all means to make sure it is brought to the attention to the UN Security Council and then referred to prosecutors.

Palestinian Authority

Following the postponing of the vote on the resolution in UNHRC, the Palestinian Authority came under heavy criticism for agreeing to defer the draft proposal endorsing all recommendations of the UN Fact Finding Mission. Several Palestinian human rights organizations, condemning the PA's action, issued a statement under the title "Justice Delayed is Justice Denied". Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas announced on 4 October that a new committee would be established in order to investigate the circumstances surrounding the deferral of the UN vote on the Goldstone Report. Hamas officials in Gaza demanded Abu Mazen resignation for supporting the postponement of the vote at the UN Human Rights Council. Mahmoud al-Zahar said that Abbas was guilty of "a very big crime against the Palestinian people" over the PA's conduct at UNHRC.

Governments

United States

Ambassador Susan Rice, the US permanent representative to the UN, said: "We have long expressed our very serious concern with the mandate that was given by the Human Rights Council prior to our joining the council, which we viewed as unbalanced, one-sided and basically unacceptable." State Department spokesman Ian Kelly said: "Although the report covers both sides of the conflict, it focuses overwhelmingly on Israel's actions", adding that Goldstone opted for 'cookie cutter conclusions' about Israel's actions, while keeping 'the deplorable actions of Hamas' to generalized remarks". U.S. Ambassador Alejandro Wolff told the Security Council that whereas the US had "serious concerns" about the report's "unbalanced focus on Israel, the overly broad scope of its recommendations and its sweeping conclusions of law, it also took the allegations in the report seriously and encouraged Israel to conduct serious investigations.

Perceived unwillingness on the part of the United States to act on the Goldstone Report has been heavily criticized by the 118-member Non-Aligned Movement (NAM), the Center for Constitutional Rights, Stephen Zunes, professor of politics and international studies at the University of San Francisco, and Human Rights Watch. Naomi Klein stated that instead of proving its commitment to international law, the United States is smearing the "courageous" report.

The report was harshly criticized by several members of the US Congress. Rep. Gary Ackerman of New York, the chairman of the House Subcommittee on the Middle East and South Asia, said in a statement: "In the self-righteous fantasyland inhabited by the authors , there's no such thing as terrorism, there's no such thing as Hamas, there's no such thing as legitimate self-defense". "Certainly, the United States should do all that it can to ensure as little time as possible is wasted on this distraction from the real work of making peace," he said. In a similar vein, Reps. Shelley Berkley of Nevada and Eliot Engel of New York wrote in a joint statement: "Israel took every reasonable step to avoid civilian casualties ... It is ridiculous to claim that Israel did not take appropriate actions to protect civilian populations".

Europe

• The French foreign ministry called the facts revealed by the report "extremely serious" and deserving of utmost attention. The ministry condemned both initial provocations and what it called "disproportionate use of force which resulted in the death of many civilians". The French UN Ambassador Gerard Araud urged both sides to initiate "independent inquiries in line with international standards."
• Talking to Israeli television Channel 2, Spanish Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero said that in any event, Spain would not seek to prosecute Israelis for alleged war crimes.
• Sweden's foreign minister Carl Bildt said he supported the report, and called Israel's refusal to co-operate with the investigation a mistake. Bildt characterized Goldstone as a person with high integrity and credibility, and called his report worthy of consideration. While Bildt spoke, Sweden held the rotating presidency of the European Union.
• At the UNHRC, Switzerland commented favourably on the impartiality of the findings in the 575-page report. The Swiss ambassador called on Israel and Hamas to conduct independent investigations into the allegations of war crimes. He also called for an independent expert panel to oversee legal procedures on both sides.
• In an interview with an Israeli radio station, the British Ambassador to the United Nations, John Sawers, supported the findings of the report and called for both Israel and the Palestinians to investigate its conclusions. Speaking at the UN Security Council's meeting, he expressed the official UK view, saying that "the Goldstone Report itself did not adequately recognize Israel's right to protect its citizens, nor did it pay sufficient attention to Hamas's actions." Nevertheless, he further stressed the concerns raised in the report, which he claimed cannot be ignored.
• Turkey, which holds a seat in the Security Council until the end of 2010, has voiced support for discussing the report to the Security Council. Turkish prime minister Tayyip Erdoğan called for "accountability" and said that guilty parties should be identified and face necessary sanctions. He also accused Israel of raining "phosphorus bombs ... on innocent children in Gaza".

Speaking in the UNHRC, numerous states called the report "balanced".

Middle-east and Asia

• Manouchehr Mottaki, Iran's foreign minister, referred to the report when calling for legal action against the Israeli leadership saying that "the perpetrators of the Gaza war should stand before international war crimes tribunal".

• Chinese members of parliament told a visiting delegation of the Israeli Parlament officials in Beijing that China will oppose discussing the Goldstone Commission's report at the UN Security Council and allowing the document to serve as a basis for law suits against Israel at the International Criminal Court in the Hague. The Chinese parliamentarians stressed that the UNHRC had the necessary tools to look into the report without the involvement of other institutions.

The Arab League called for implementation of the recommendations of the Goldstone report. Arab League Secretary General Amr Moussa stressed the Arab League's commitment to closely follow up the situation, and to reassure implementation of Goldstone's recommendations in order to help "prevent future assaults".

Non-governmental organizations

A number of other human rights organizations in a statement saying that they "expect the Government of Israel to respond to the substance of the report's findings and to desist from its current policy of casting doubt upon the credibility of anyone who does not adhere to the establishment's narrative." At the same time criticized the "very careful phrasing regarding Hamas abuses" as well as supposedly sweeping conclusions regarding Israel.

Amnesty International stated that Goldstone's findings are consistent with those of Amnesty’s own field investigation, and called on the UN to act promptly to implement the report's recommendations. Human Rights Watch called the report a a significant step toward justice and redress for the victims on both sides, and called on the Security Council to implement the report's recommendations.

Israeli human rights group B'Tselem, along with eight other Israeli NGOs, stated in a joint release that the report joins "a long series of reports" indicating that Israel's actions during the fighting in Gaza, as well as the actions of Hamas, violated the laws of combat and human rights law. The NGOs urged the Israeli government to investigate the charges made in the report. The Executive Director of B'Tselem later wrote that whereas the report was not without faults, unequivocal denouncement of the report is unsubstantiated. She criticized the "very careful phrasing regarding Hamas abuses", such as lack of condemnation of mosques' misuses or human shielding, as well as supposedly sweeping conclusions regarding Israel. At the same time, she regretted what she called Israel's failure to investigate alleged abuses during the war on its own.

UN Watch criticized Goldstone's report methodologies that allegedly dismissed or ignored much of the evidence provided in Israeli Government report from July 2009 on the one hand and on the other hand endorsed unquestionably testimonies by Gaza officials, e.g. police spokesman in the Gaza Strip Islam Shahwan was designated credible witness despite previous claims that Israel had distributed libido-increasing chewing gum in Gaza. Representatives of Simon Wiesenthal Center made similar charges.

Israeli-based NGO Monitor alleged that among numerous errors of the report, there is a misstatement of the International Humanitarian Law regarding the obligation of the fighters engaged in hostilities to distinguish themselves from the civilian population by uniform (perfidy violation per Article 37 of the Protocol I).

Journalism and academia

The Economist (UK) responded to the report with two distinct articles. The first, published on September 9, 2009 said that "the cases detailed in the commission's report are far too serious to ignore" and that "Israel's response has been to launch a campaign to discredit the report as 'biased'". The Economist details the list of serious accusations: "These included Israeli shelling attacks on two hospitals and the headquarters of the UN Relief and Works Agency, then housing over 600 refugees. They include seemingly intentional gunfire on defenseless civilians, such as a case in which civilians walking with white flags after being ordered to leave their houses were allegedly fired on at close range by Israeli tanks. (The gunfire killed two of them; 21 more were killed later when the house they took refuge in was destroyed by yet-to-be-ascertained Israeli munitions, possibly helicopter-fired missiles.) They include four cases in which Israeli soldiers allegedly used Palestinian civilians as human shields. They include the apparently deliberate destruction of Gaza's only flour mill; intentionally destroying a civilian population's source of food is a war crime." The second response denounced the report as "deeply flawed" and detrimental to the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, arguing that it was tainted by anti-Israel prejudice in the UNHRC. In particular, The Economist chastised the mission's fact-finders for detecting little or no evidence in favor of the charge that Hamas endangered civilians by basing themselves around schools, mosques and hospitals, stating that the charge is supported by many reports in the public domain. The critique continues: "The report does criticise Hamas for firing rockets indiscriminately into Israel and for using the conflict as cover to settle scores with its Palestinian rivals. But its seemingly wilful blindness to other evidence makes that look like a dash for political cover". The magazine finally says that there are "credible allegations" that some Israeli soldiers killed Palestinians civilians "in cold blood", used them as human shields, and Israel used white phosphorous over built-up areas. The Economists critique of the report was denounced by the executive director of Human Rights Watch, rabbis Brian Walt and Brant Rosen from Ta’anit Tzedek-Jewish Fast for Gaza organization, and others.

The Wall Street Journal (US) (WSJ) harshly criticized the report, calling it a "new low" in United Nations bias on Israel-related matters. WSJ wrote that the commission's members "were forced to make some astonishing claims of fact" in order to reach some of their conclusions. In particular, WSJ criticized the report's claim that the Gaza police force was a "civilian" agency and its inability to establish Palestinian use of mosques for military purposes despite evidence to the contrary.

The Financial Times wrote that "condemnation by a United Nations panel of the conduct of both Hamas and Israel during the Gaza war should have acted as a wake-up call for both the leaders and people of the Jewish state. In more than 500 pages, the fact-finding mission outlined war crimes and possibly crimes against humanity in a conflict where each side has become dangerously immune to the suffering of the other. Yet the damning assessment of Israel's behaviour does not appear to have shaken the general consensus - in government, in society and in much of the media - that whatever the military did in Gaza in its three-week offensive in December and January, its actions were justified. "

The Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs (JCPA), Jerusalem Post editorial, the president of the Interdisciplinary Center in Herzliya Israel, and historian professor Richard Landes have criticised the findings and methodologies of the report. The JCPA provided specific examples in which, it charged, testimony by Hamas operatives was accepted uncritically by the commission despite being contradicted by freely accessible Palestinian sources.

Military experts

Colonel Richard Kemp, former commander of British forces in Afghanistan, on behalf of UN Watch addressed the UNHCR at its October's special session discussing the report, said that Hamas is "adept at staging and distorting incidents". Kemp stated that during the conflict the Israel Defense Forces "did more to safeguard the rights of civilians in a combat zone than any other army in the history of warfare" and that Palestinian civilian casualties were a consequence of Hamas' way of fighting, which involved using human shields as a matter of policy, and deliberate attempts to sacrifice their own civilians. He added that Israel took extraordinary measures to give Gaza civilians notice of targeted areas, aborted potentially effective missions in order to prevent civilian casualties, and took "unthinkable" risks by allowing huge amounts of humanitarian aid into Gaza during the fighting. According to the notable figure in Israeli South-African community Maurice Ostroff, he recommended that the committee interviewed colonel Kemp; in a direct reply he received from Judge Goldstone, the inquiry found the potential contribution from colonel Kemp inappropriate "because the report did not deal with the issues he raised regarding the problems of conducting military operations in civilian areas". Ostroff said that Goldstone's answer was "astonishing, as the entire fact-finding mission was precisely about military operations in civilian areas".

Major General Jim Molan, who served as chief of operations of the Iraq multinational force in 2004–05, stated that in his view, the Goldstone report is merely an opinion by a group of people with limited access to the facts, which reflects their own prejudices. He also says that the difference in tone and attitude in the report when discussing Israeli and Hamas actions is "surprising". Molan, nevertheless, acknowledges that, unlike the committee members, "as a soldier who has run a war against an opponent not dissimilar to Hamas, facing problems perhaps similar to those faced by Israeli commanders, my sympathies tend to lie with the Israelis", who he said exercised great care to avoid civilian casualties while fighting against opponents regularly using human shields. He concluded by saying, "But having stated my prejudice, I think I may be more honest than Goldstone, who seems to pass off his prejudices in a report that cannot be based on fact, and uses judicial language and credibility to do so. It comes down to equality of scepticism: if you refuse to believe anything the Israelis say, then you have no right to unquestioningly accept what Hamas says."

Other

Residents of southern Israel who testified before the commission regarding Palestinian rocket attacks on the region said that their testimonies were largely ignored.

The Trades Union Congress (TUC), a federation of trade unions in the United Kingdom, "welcomed" the findings of the report and called for "targeted, consumer-led sanctions directed at businesses based in, and sustaining, the illegal settlements". The Fire Brigade Union (FBU) as well as Britain's largest trade union, Unite, and the largest public sector union, Unison, called for a complete boycott of all Israeli products.

J street, an American lobby in the United States, called on Israel to establish an independent state commission of inquiry to investigate the accusations detailed in the report.

In the wake of the report, and following receipt of material from pro-Palestinian groups in South Africa, International Criminal Court prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo stated he was considering opening an investigation into whether Lt. Col. David Benjamin, an Israel Defense Forces reserve officer, allowed war crimes to be committed during the Gaza war. Benjamin served in the Military Advocate General's international law department, but was actually abroad for most of the period of the conflict and already retired from active duty. Because of his dual Israeli-South African citizenship, he is according to Moreno-Ocampo within the jurisdiction of the ICC (Israel has not ratified the treaty founding the ICC, while South Africa has).

Princeton professor emeritus of international law Richard Falk, appointed in 2008 by the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) to serve as a United Nations Special Rapporteur on "the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967", endorsed the report as "an historic contribution to the Palestinian struggle for justice, an impeccable documentation of a crucial chapter in their victimization under occupation". Writing in Electronic Intifada, Falk further commented that the report appeared to him to be "more sensitive" to Israel's contentions that Hamas was guilty of war crimes, and that the report in many ways "endorses the misleading main line of the Israeli narrative". Falk was critical of charges that the report, or the UNHRC, were biased and inferred that such criticism amounted to an attempt to "avoid any real look at the substance of the charges".

The chief rabbi of South Africa, PhD. in Human Rights Law Warren Goldstein criticized the mission's report from a legal point of view. He stated that from legal perspective, the committee had to accept Israel's right to remain silent and then ought to have desisted from making factual or legal conclusions.

Former Canada Minister of Justice professor Irwin Cotler opposed the report which he regarded as "tainted". Nevertheless, he is in favor of establishing an independent inquiry into the Gaza war, saying that Israel would set a precedent if it creates such an inquiry that according to his best knowledge no other democracy had.

Israeli laywer Charles Abelsohn criticized the objectivity of the committee members, citing colonel Travers who said during the public hearings that "there have been instances of the shooting of children in front of their parents. As an ex-soldier I find that kind of action to be very, very strange and very unique", asking the witness to comment on those insights.

Goldstone's response to criticism

Goldstone has dismissed accusations of anti-Israel bias in his report as "ridiculous" and invited "fair minded people" to read the report and "at the end of it, point out where it failed to be objective or even-handed". Speaking in the UNHRC, he rejected what he called a "barrage of criticism" about his findings and said the answers to such criticism are in the findings of the report. Goldstone said that the United States, for example, had failed to substantiate its charges that the report was biased. Goldstone referred to his experiences of South Africa to reject Israeli PM Netanyahu's arguments that the report would make peacemaking more difficult, saying that "truth-telling and acknowledgement to victims can be a very important assistance to peace".

In an interview with the Jewish Forward, published on 7 October 2009, Goldstone emphasized that his task was to conduct a "fact-finding mission" and not an "investigation." He acknowledged the reliance on Palestinian (Gazan and Hamas) testimonies, and said: "We had to do the best we could with the material we had. If this were a court of law there would have been nothing proven. ... I would not consider it in any way embarrassing if many of the allegations turn out to be disproved."

Subsequent developments

UN Human Rights Council

The vote for the UNHRC resolution endorsing the report was delayed until the council's meeting in March 2010, after Palestinian delegation dropped its support for a resolution, apparently under heavy US pressure. On 11 October 2009, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas called on the UN Human Rights Council to hold a special session to endorse the Goldstone Report. UN officials announced that the UN Human Rights Council will reopen the debate about the report's findings on 15 October.

On 15 October, the UNHRC endorsed the report, a move that will send it on to more powerful UN bodies for action. The resolution to the council condemned Israeli human rights violations in east Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza, as well as chastised Israel for failing to cooperate with the UN mission. The resolution text also calls on the council to endorse the Goldstone Report, however the resolution explicitly mentions only Israeli violations of international law.

25 of the UNHRC members, mostly developing countries, voted in favor of the resolution; the United States and five European countries opposed; eleven mostly European and African countries abstained and Britain, France and three other members of the 47-nation body declined to vote.

The "unbalanced focus" of the ratification was criticized by U.S. State Department spokesman Ian Kelly and U.S. ambassador to the UNHRC Douglas Griffiths

Israeli officials rejected the UN Human Rights Council decision to endorse the report. Israeli Arab MK Ahmed Tibi, Hamas and Palestinian Authority representatives welcomed the vote.

Complete endorsement vote results

The report has been adopted by a vote of 25 in favour, six against, and 11 abstentions at a meeting held on the 16 October 2009. The result of the vote was as follows:

In favour (25): Argentina, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, China, Cuba, Djibouti, Egypt, Ghana, India, Indonesia, Jordan, Mauritius, Nicaragua, Nigeria, Pakistan, Philippines, Qatar, Russian Federation, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, South Africa, and Zambia.

Against (6): Hungary, Italy, Netherlands, Slovakia, Ukraine, and United States of America.

Abstentions (11): Belgium, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Gabon, Japan, Mexico, Norway, Republic of Korea, Slovenia, and Uruguay.

Absent (5): Angola, France, Kyrgyzstan, Madagascar, and United Kingdom.

Criticism by Goldstone

Richard Goldstone, the head of the mission which compiled the report, criticized the United Nations Human Rights Council resolution for targeting only Israel and failing to include Hamas: "This draft resolution saddens me as it includes only allegations against Israel. There is not a single phrase condemning Hamas as we have done in the report. I hope that the council can modify the text".

UN Security Council

Libya requested an emergency session of the UN Security Council on 7 October to consider the content of the report by UNHRC fact-finding mission. The request was rejected, but the Security Council agreed to advance its periodical meeting on the Middle East from 20 October to 14 October and to discuss the war crimes allegations raised in the report. The report became the focus of the Security Council's monthly Mideast meeting on 14 October. Council diplomats say there is little chance that the Security Council will take any action, primarily because of objections by the United States, which said the report should be handled by the Human Rights Council.

See also

• International Law and the Gaza War
• Lawfare

References

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External links

• Report of the United Nations Fact Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict, United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, Late Submission

• 2008–2009 Israel–Gaza conflict
• Gaza
• Gaza Strip
• Israeli–Palestinian conflict