Plumes of disproportion: Israeli bombs raining on Gaza during the December-January war (David Silverman/Getty Images)
The Goldstone report is the informal name of a 575-page report by lead investigator and South African judge Richard Goldstone. The report was mandated by the United Nations Human Rights Council, calling on the Goldstone mission "to investigate all violations of international human rights law and international humanitarian law that might have been committed at any time in the context of the military operations that were conducted in Gaza during the period from 27 December 2008 and 18 January 2009, whether before, during or after."
The report consequently examined human rights abuses, war crimes, possible crimes against humanity and other atrocities committed by the Israeli military and Palestinian factions, particularly Hamas, in Gaza and the West Bank. The report examines 36 attacks in Gaza and other acts of aggression in the West Bank and Israel before, during and after Israel's war on Gaza at the end of 2008 and the beginning of 2009.
The mission conducted 188 interviews, reviewed 10,000 pages of documents and 1,200 photographs. Israel refused to allow the investigators into the country. So the Human Rights Council paid for Israeli witnesses, including a mayor and Israeli victims, to give testimony in Geneva.
The report, issued on Sept. 15, 2009, blisters Hamas and the Israeli military, accusing both of war crimes. But most of the blame falls on Israel for its disproportionate use of force and cursory concern for civilian lives. Rocket attacks by Hamas against random Israeli targets are severely criticized But the harshest language applies to Israeli acts against the civilian population in Gaza. Israel's assault on Gaza, the report states, was "a deliberately disproportionate attack designed to punish, humiliate and terrorize a civilian population, radically diminish its local economic capacity both to work and to provide for itself, and to force upon it an ever increasing sense of dependency and vulnerability."
Read the full FAQ: What Is the Goldstone Report?
See Also:
- The Goldstone Report (575 p., pdf)
- Waltz With Hamas: Israeli Atrocities in Gaza
- Gaza-Israel: The Crazy War
- Israel's Human Shields in Gaza: Palestinian "Johnnies"
- Bloodletting in Gaza
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