Israel Official Investigating Gaza Strip War Conduct.
Source: nyt
— Israel’s government watchdog, the state comptroller, said on Tuesday that he had initiated an investigation into decisions made by military and political leaders during last summer’s 50-day war with the Hamas militant group in Gaza.
The announcement was Israel’s latest effort to head off an International Criminal Court inquiry into its conduct during the war, and came days after prosecutors at the court opened a preliminary examination of possible war crimes committed in the Palestinian territories, the first formal step that could lead to charges against Israelis.
A United Nations Human Rights Council commission of inquiry into Israel’s military operations in the Gaza Strip is already underway. The state comptroller’s announcement also came as Physicians for Human Rights-Israel, which opposes Israeli occupation of the territories captured in 1967, published a report criticizing what it said were failures of the Israeli military’s system for warning Gaza’s citizens of impending strikes during the fighting last summer. It also faulted the military for a lack of safe evacuation routes and for strikes against rescue teams.
The International Criminal Court generally takes on only cases concerning countries that are unwilling or unable to investigate their own actions. In a statement, the Israeli state comptroller, Joseph Haim Shapira, a former judge, highlighted this point as an apparent motivating factor in beginning his inquiry.
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