United Nations Fact Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict

[11][12][13][14] Critics of the report stated that it contained methodological failings, legal and factual errors, and falsehoods, and devoted insufficient attention to the allegations that Hamas was deliberately operating in heavily populated areas of Gaza.

The Report described the three weeks comprising the Gaza War as: a deliberately disproportionate attack designed to punish, 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.

Gerald Steinberg of the Jerusalem-based NGO Monitor and journalist Melanie Phillips said that even though Goldstone resigned from HRW after the inquiry began, his impartiality was compromised by his link to an organization that accused Israel of war crimes.

"[43] The inquiry members said that the mission investigated whether Israel, Hamas or the Palestinian Authority had unnecessarily harmed innocent civilians, stating "On those issues the letter co-signed by Chinkin expressed no view at all.

[62] Another witness, Shawan Jabarin, General Director of the Palestinian human-rights organisation Al Haq, had to be heard by videoconference, as he has been subject to a travel ban by Israel since 2006 preventing him from leaving the West Bank on the grounds that he is a senior member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.

These differentiators included 'grave breaches of the Fourth Geneva Convention committed by Israeli forces in Gaza; wilful killing, torture or inhuman treatment, willfully causing great suffering or serious injury to body or health, and extensive destruction of property, not justified by military necessity and carried out unlawfully and wantonly'.

[note 2] 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".

1768 The report stated that the January 3, 2009 strike on the al-Maqadmah mosque on the outskirts of Jabilyah occurred when between 200 and 300 men and women attended for their evening prayer, with 15 people being killed and 40 wounded as a result of the attack.

The investigation did not exclude the possibility that Israeli forces were responding to fire from an armed Palestinian group, as Israel said, but said that this and similar attacks "cannot meet the test of what a reasonable commander would have determined to be an acceptable loss of civilian life for the military advantage sought".

696–698, late submission In 2012 Israeli officials acknowledged that contrary to earlier claims, no rockets were fired from schools operated by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) during the Gaza war.

[70] According to the Mission's report, the committee found Khaled and Kawthar Abd Rabbo to be credible and reliable witnesses and it had no reason to doubt the veracity of the main elements of their testimony, which it says is consistent with the accounts it received from other eyewitnesses and NGOs.[69]: para.

The report bases its conclusion on the premise that the family, consisting of a man, a young and an elderly woman and three small girls, some of them waving white flags, stepped out of the house and stood still for several minutes waiting for instructions from the soldiers.[69]: para.

[82] Following the postponing of the vote on the resolution in UNHRC, the Palestinian National Authority came under heavy criticism for agreeing to defer the draft proposal endorsing all recommendations of the UN Fact Finding Mission.

It argued, however, that Israeli objections to the UNHRC were on strong ground, stating, "council members from Libya to Angola hide behind the Palestinian cause to deflect attention from their own records of serious human rights abuse.

In particular, The Economist chastised the mission for saying there was little or no evidence showing Hamas endangered civilians by basing themselves around schools, mosques and hospitals, and claimed that instead, the charge was supported by many reports in the public domain.

At the same time it pronounced itself unable to confirm that Hamas hid its fighters among civilians, used human shields, fired mortars and rockets from outside schools, stored weapons in mosques, and used a hospital for its headquarters, despite abundant available evidence".

[61] Australian Major General Jim Molan (retired), who served as chief of operations of the Iraq multinational force in 2004–05, stated that "The Goldstone report is an opinion by one group of people putting forward their judgments, with limited access to the facts, and reflecting their own prejudices.

"[132] Writing in the Financial Times Italian Jurist Antonio Cassese who was the first President of the International Criminal Tribunal For the Former Yugoslavia argued that critics of the report were relying primarily on ad hominem and strawman attacks.

[137] Nigel Rodley, professor of law at University of Essex said the report "painstakingly documents" a large number of violations by Hamas, PA and Israel, and carefully provides evidence to back them.

The article also criticized the way the committee dismissed first-hand evidences from IDF soldiers implying that mosques were used as launching points for Hamas attacks and as weapons storage facilities.

[155][156] Goldstone referred to his experiences of South Africa to reject Israeli PM Netanyahu's arguments that the report would make peacemaking more difficult, saying, "truth-telling and acknowledgement to victims can be a very important assistance to peace.

Slovak Foreign Minister Miroslav Lajcak attributed the change in voting partly to a negative reaction in Europe to an assassination carried out in Dubai, which was largely blamed on Israel.

[11] The Prime Minister's Office released a statement on 24 October stating that the Israel Defense Forces had investigated most of the incidents and accusations of human rights abuses mentioned in the report.

[181] Former Israeli Supreme Court President Aharon Barak advised the Attorney General to establish a state committee endowed with investigative and subpoena powers to look into the claims raised by the Goldstone report.

HRW deputy Middle East director Joe Stork stated: "Hamas can spin the story and deny the evidence, but hundreds of rockets rained down on civilian areas in Israel where no military installations were located.

[187] In September 2010, A UN Human Rights Council panel said Israel and Hamas had failed to conduct credible and adequate investigations into the war crimes allegations contained in the Goldstone report.

[206] The European Initiative, a pro-Israeli group, lodged an itemized legal complaint with the Belgian Federal Prosecutor's Office and demanded that the top Hamas leadership in Gaza and Damascus be prosecuted for war crimes.

[207][208] UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Navi Pillay, wrote that the even-handed and impartial approach of the team led by Goldstone is indispensable in preventing future human-rights violations and in establishing a solid base for peace and security.

Sapey explained "A move to change or withdraw the report would either require a formal written complaint from Goldstone, backed unanimously by his three fellow authors, or a vote by the UN general assembly or the human rights council.

[221] American Jewish Committee (AJC) Executive Director, David Harris, said that "Judge Goldstone should apologize to the State of Israel for the accusations of intentionally targeting civilians, which he now admits were unfounded.