CAIRO (AP) – The third Gaza war is playing out much like the first one more than five years ago: The harrowing civilian toll in Gaza is now at the center of the discourse, eclipsing the rocket attacks by Hamas militants that were the stated reason for the Israeli assault.
Then as now, a question persists: Beyond the carnage, are Israel’s airstrikes achieving anything at all?
It ended messily for Israel in 2009. A U.N. commission investigated, Israel refused to cooperate, and the resulting report – since then partly disavowed by its own author, former South African judge Richard Goldstone – said Israel deliberately targeted civilians and might have committed war crimes, along with Hamas.
About 1,400 Palestinians, including many hundreds of civilians, were killed in the operation dubbed “Cast Lead,” along with 13 Israelis. After 18 days this year, the civilian death toll of operation “Protective Edge” is at similar levels – and the proportion is higher. Israel’s argument is similar as well: Hamas is to blame not only for attacking a much-stronger power with rockets, but also for operating from within heavily populated residential areas, as well as mosques, hospitals and schools.
Navi Pillay, the U.N. high commissioner for human rights, said Wednesday that some of the recent Israeli attacks, including those on homes and on a care center for the disabled, raise “a strong possibility that international law has been violated in a manner that could amount to war crimes.”