Cabinet minister says Israel will not set up independent Gaza war inquiry as UN called for

Israel shuns UN call for Gaza war probe

JERUSALEM — Israel will not set up a special panel to investigate the army’s conduct during its Gaza offensive last winter, a Cabinet minister said Tuesday — rejecting a key demand in a U.N. report that accused the military of war crimes.

With a deadline looming, Information Minister Yuli Edelstein said Israel would submit a document to the U.N. later this week that deals only with Israel’s own investigations of its wartime conduct.

The U.N. report has called on Israel and Gaza’s Hamas rulers to conduct independent probes into the conduct of their forces during last winter’s Gaza fighting. The General Assembly endorsed the report last November, giving the sides until Feb. 5 to respond.

By rejecting calls for an independent probe, Israel could open itself to international war crimes charges. But Israeli leaders have expressed concern that forcing soldiers to testify could hurt morale and make them wary of taking part in battle in the future.

“Israel will not set up any review panel,” Edelstein told Israel Radio from New York, where he met with U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon to discuss the report. He stressed that Israel “will relay a document addressing something very specific, namely, the character and credibility of internal investigations that took place in Israel.”

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was out of the country, and officials declined comment.

The U.N. report, authored by veteran war crimes prosecutor Richard Goldstone, has accused Israel of committing war crimes and possible crimes against humanity. Some 1,400 people were killed, including about 900 civilians, according to Palestinian and international human rights groups. Thirteen Israelis also were killed in the fighting.

Israel, which launched the Gaza operation after years of rocket attacks by Palestinian militants, has rejected the U.N. report as flawed and biased. It says Hamas is to blame for civilian casualties because militants operated within residential areas.

Should Israel disregard the U.N.’s call for an unbiased investigation, the U.N. Security Council could refer the case to prosecutors at the International Criminal Court in The Hague.

Washington would be expected to block such a move, but would not be able to spare Israel finding itself the focus of an embarrassing, high-profile investigation.

So far, the only investigations Israel has conducted have been carried out by the military itself. But critics don’t trust the military to investigate itself.

Israel refused to cooperate with the Goldstone probe, despite Goldstone’s own close ties with the Jewish state, because the U.N. body that commissioned it has a history of singling out Israel for particular censure.

In Gaza, a committee set up by the Hamas justice minister, Farah al-Ghoul, is looking into the war crimes allegations against the militant group.

The committee is to release its findings in coming days, Hamas legislator Salah Bardawil said Monday.

Hamas has denied wrongdoing and insists that firing rockets at Israel is legitimate resistance to Israeli occupation.

Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005, after 38 years of direct military rule, but still controls the territory’s border crossings, as well as air space and access from the sea.