United Nations Report: Israeli army ‘negligent’ and ‘reckless’ in Gaza

Thursday May 07, 2009 23:01 by Saed Bannoura - IMEMC News

The four-member Board of Inquiry appointed by the United Nations to investigate Israel’s attacks on UN facilities during its December-January invasion of the Gaza Strip has released a report of its findings.

Ban ki-Moon in Gaza after Israeli attack (IPS photo)

The report, which was originally 184 pages, was stripped down to only 27 pages by the time of its release on Tuesday – a move which critics say undermines the viability of the Board’s findings and ‘waters down’ the resulting report.

UN Secretary General Ban ki-Moon told reporters in a press conference Tuesday, "I would like to categorically reject any impression, any word, called watered down.  I told you that this Board of Inquiry is independent. I respect the complete independence of this report."

Durings its three-week assault on Gaza, the Israeli military repeatedly attacked United Nations facilities, including schools where civilians had taken refuge.  While the Israeli military claimed, at the time, that there were ‘militants firing rockets from the schools’, video footage of the Israeli attacks showed that claim to be entirely false.  There were no ‘militants hiding among the civilian population’, as Israel claimed at the time.  In addition, international law prohibits collective punishment of a population and calls for armies to avoid civilian casualties.  Over 1,000 of the 1400 Palestinians killed by the Israeli military in its invasion were civilians, nearly 400 of whom were young children.

The UN Report does not address this issue, instead focusing mainly on damage to UN property in the Gaza Strip.  While Ban ki-Moon stated that he may seek compensation from the Israeli government for some of the destruction they caused, he answered a reporter’s question about further action by the UN with the statement, “At this time I do not see it is necessary for me to establish any further inquiry on this issue. And whatever the cases there may be, where appropriate, I will take some action on a case-by-case basis on this."

The Board of Inquiry was comprised of Ian Martin, Larry Johnson, Sinha Basnayake and Lieutenant Colonel Patrick Eichenberger.  The Board was mandated to investigate the nine most serious incidents of Israeli attacks on UN personnel and property.  One of these attacks included the use of white phosphorus dumped by Israeli airplane on a United Nations school where hundreds of Palestinian civilians were seeking refuge.