'No civilians targeted' in Gaza

2009-11-10 21:12

Jerusalem - Israeli army investigations found no evidence soldiers deliberately attacked civilians during the Gaza war at the turn of the year, army chief Lieutenant General Gabi Ashkenazi said on Tuesday.

"We are not an army of looters and raiders. We found no instances of looting or rape," Ashkenazi was quoted as telling parliament's foreign affairs and defence committee.

"We found no incidents where a soldier deliberately targeted a woman or a child," an official present at the meeting quoted Ashkenazi as saying.

Chaos of war

Ashkenazi's comments came as a rare response to the Goldstone report, the UN probe into the war that accused both Israel and Palestinian militants of war crimes.

Ashkenazi said the five military teams of investigators carried out investigations that found that while civilians had been killed, these incidents were accidents that happened in the chaos of war.

"We found we made mistakes and accidently hit civilians, just like we accidently hit our own officers and soldiers," Ashkenazi told the closed-door committee.

The UN probe said both Israel and Palestinian groups committed war crimes and possible crimes against humanity during the 22-day war in December-January that Israel launched in response to rocket fire from the Palestinian enclave.

Casualties

Some 1 400 Palestinians and 13 Israelis were killed in the conflict. More than half of the Palestinian casualties, including 320 minors, did not take part in the fighting according to human rights groups.

The 575-page report by a panel led by respected former international prosecutor Richard Goldstone recommended that its findings be transferred to the International Criminal Court in The Hague if Israel and the Hamas rulers of Gaza fail to conduct credible investigations into the war.

Ashkenazi said the army had received 130 complaints from Palestinians and that 60 Palestinians had given testimony in its investigations.

- AFP