Published 17 September 2009, doi:10.1136/bmj.b3837
Cite this as: BMJ 2009;339:b3837

News

UN mission finds evidence of war crimes on both sides of Gaza conflict

John Zarocostas

1 Geneva

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

Israel’s armed forces committed actions amounting to war crimes and possibly crimes against humanity during the recent Gaza conflict, says a UN report. It documents deliberate attacks on hospitals and other medical facilities.

The report, which was compiled by an independent fact finding mission, also concludes indiscriminate rocket and mortar attacks by Palestinian armed groups into Southern Israel would constitute war crimes, and may amount to crimes against humanity.

The mission found that the military operation by Israel from 27 December to 18 January, 2009, "was a deliberate attack designed to punish, humiliate and terrorize a civilian population, radically diminish its local economic capacity and to force upon it an ever increasing sense of dependency and vulnerability."

An Israeli foreign ministry spokesman said, "Israel did not feel able to cooperate with the fact finding mission because its mandate was clearly one sided."

Investigators assert that the use of disproportionate force . . . [Full text of this article]


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Usual BMJ stuff
Harvey Gordon, et al.
bmj.com, 27 Sep 2009 [Full text]
Will Dr Gordon please tell us the source of his statement?
derek a summerfield
bmj.com, 1 Oct 2009 [Full text]
War and Peace
Hugh Mann
bmj.com, 5 Oct 2009 [Full text]
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