Israel Rebuffs NGO’s Gaza Allegations

Israel’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Emmanuel Nahshon denounced on Wednesday the latest Amnesty International report on the Gaza war as “fundamentally flawed.”

The international watchdog said that the Israeli military may have committed war crimes and crimes against humanity during last summer’s Gaza war when it carried out four days of intense bombardment in retaliation for an attack by Hamas terrorists in which an Israeli soldier, Lieutenant Hadar Goldin, was captured.

It alleged that the military failed to independently probe the incident and called on the International Criminal Court to investigate.

Nahshon condemned the inherent bias in the report, pointing out that “there is almost no mention of the military actions of Hamas and other Palestinian terrorist organizations.

“When one reads the report, the impression is given that the [Israeli military] was fighting against itself — as there is almost no mention of the military actions of Hamas and other Palestinian terrorist organizations,” the Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

Israel accused Amnesty of “a false narrative — claiming that four days of military operations by the IDF were in direct response to the killing and kidnapping of one IDF soldier,” the Foreign Ministry said, referring to the Israel Defense Forces.

“It seems that Amnesty forgot that there was an ongoing conflict — during which the IDF was operating to stop rocket fire and neutralize cross-border assault tunnels, and Palestinian terrorist organizations were actively engaging in intensive conflict against the IDF from within the civilian environment.”

This article appeared in print on page 7 of the July 30th, 2015 edition of Hamodia.