BICOM

Israel’s former-Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni met yesterday with Middle East Minister Tobias Ellwood and other senior officials, to present them with Israel’s detailed report on last summer’s Operation Protective Edge.

The 277-page document is an inter-ministerial report published by Israel’s Foreign Ministry on last summer’s Gaza conflict. Among its key findings, the report found that the IDF engaged in a lengthy legal process before attacks were approved, in accordance with the Law of Armed Conflict and that the IDF also made extensive efforts to facilitate humanitarian aid to Gaza’s civilians during the fighting.

By contrast, the report says that Hamas deliberately attempted to draw fighting into urban terrain for political gain and often physically coerced Gazans to remain in areas Israel warned would be attacked. Some 550 rockets and mortars were identified as having been fired from civilian sites including mosques, schools and hospitals. Meanwhile, of the 2,125 Palestinians killed during the conflict, the report said 36 per cent were civilians and 40 per cent combatants. Had Hamas accepted an Egyptian-brokered ceasefire a week into the conflict, the report said 90 per cent of casualties would have been avoided.

Israel’s report comes soon before the expected publication of a United Nations’ Human Rights Council (UNHRC) commission report into the conflict. Israel declined to cooperate with the UNHRC investigation because of the commission’s one-sided mandate, described at the time as “fundamentally unbalanced” by Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond. The UNHRC itself has a track record of hostility towards Israel, with Israel being the only country which has an entire agenda item dedicated to it in every session.

Livni, who was a member of Israel’s security cabinet during last summer’s conflict and is now an opposition MK, met with both Ellwood and Foreign Office Director General Simon Gass. She commented, “It is important that the British government have an accurate picture of the factual, ethical, and legal reality, because the UN report is expected to be so twisted and anti-Israel.” Meanwhile, Yesh Atid leader Yair Lapid told his faction yesterday that the UNHCR report is “born in sin, and it should be treated as such.”