Gaza, Palestinian Territories
IN PHOTO: Smoke and sand are seen following what witnesses said was an Israeli air strike in Gaza August 21, 2014. Israel killed three senior Hamas commanders in an air strike on the Gaza Strip on Thursday, the clearest signal yet that Israel is intent on eliminating the group's military leadership after a failed attempt on the life of its top commander this week. Hamas, which dominates Gaza, named the men as Mohammed Abu Shammala, Raed al-Attar and Mohammed Barhoum and said they were killed in the bombing of a house in the southern town of Rafah. All three were described as senior Hamas military figures. Reuters/Ahmed Zakot

Israel has denounced the United Nations Rights Council as being biased after a UN report indicted both Israel and Palestinian militants for having committed war crimes during the month-long Gaza war in July 2014.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, while flaying the report, called it “flawed and biased” and accused the Human Rights Council of having a “singular obsession with Israel.” Israel’s foreign ministry also reacted, saying "it is well known that the entire process that led to the production of this report was politically motivated and morally flawed from the outset. This report was commissioned by a notoriously biased institution," it said, referring to the UN Human Rights Council.

Probe Commission Defends

In the report, the United Nations Commission of Inquiry found both Israel and Palestinian militants being responsible for violations of international law, amounting to war crimes. The Commission of Inquiry, in its 217-page report submitted to the UN Human Rights Council said militants clearly wanted to spread terror among Israeli civilians. On Israel, it said, there was no clear evidence to justify Israel’s actions in targeting residential buildings in Gaza late at night that led to severe escalation of mass civilian casualties, reports New York Times.

The report was authored by McGowan Davis, a woman jurist from the U.S. and Doudou Diene, a lawyer from Senegal. Condemning the actions of Israel during Gaza war, the report said, “impunity prevailed across the board” and called it to “break with its recent lamentable track record in holding wrongdoers accountable.”

The report in its specifics noted that “the scale of the devastation was unprecedented” in Gaza with more than 6,000 airstrikes, 14,500 tank shells and 45,000 artillery shells unleashed between July 7 and Aug 26. At the Israeli side, the hostilities heaped “immense distress and disruption to the lives of Israeli civilians,” with 4,881 rockets and 1,753 mortars hurled at them by Palestinians during that period. It also referred to the use of tunnels built by militants to infiltrate into the Israeli territory.

The report sqaurely blamed Palestinian armed groups for the “inherently indiscriminate nature” of rockets and mortars fired at Israeli civilians and in the brutal killing if people suspected to be informers. It also faulted Palestinian authorities for having “consistently failed” in bringing violators of international law to justice.

Hamas Reaction

Hamas, the radical Islamist group controlling Gaza, dubbed the report as a “clear condemnation” of Israel and wanted that country to be held responsible for all war crimes, and chose to ignore the report’s criticism about its own excesses. At a Geneva news conference, the Commission of Inquiry’s chairwoman Mary McGowan Davis claimed that the investigation was fair and it gathered testimony “in a scrupulously objective fashion.”

(For feedback/comments, contact the writer at k.kumar@ibtimes.com.au)

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