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The UN has concluded both Israel and Palestine may have committed war crimes in their 50-day war in Gaza last year. So what? Fairfax Media's Middle East Correspondent Ruth Pollard explains.
What is the main takeaway from the UN report?
The United Nations Human Rights Commission of Inquiry report found evidence of serious violations, including possible war crimes, by both Israel and Palestinian armed groups during last year's 50-day war in Gaza.
It found the 2014 hostilities marked a huge increase in firepower used in Gaza, with more than 6000 airstrikes by Israel and approximately 50,000 tank and artillery shells fired in the 51-day operation.
At least 1462 Palestinian civilians were killed, a third of them children. In total around 2200 Palestinians were killed. Palestinian armed groups fired 4881 rockets and 1753 mortars towards Israel in July and August 2014, killing six civilians and injuring at least 1600.
In total 73 Israelis and one foreign worker were killed.
"Impunity prevails across the board for violations of international humanitarian law and international human rights law allegedly committed by Israeli forces, whether it be in the context of active hostilities in Gaza or killings, torture and ill-treatment in the West Bank," the commission found.
How has the report been received?
Israel, which refused to participate in the inquiry, answer any questions or give the UN team permission to access Gaza or the West Bank, has attacked the commission of inquiry and dismissed its report as inherently biased.
The State of Palestine, which cooperated fully with the investigators, welcomed the report and says it is considering its findings. Hamas, however, chose to ignore the findings against it and other armed groups in Gaza and focused only on the criticisms of Israel's actions.
What happens next?
The commission said: "Israel must break with its recent lamentable track record in holding wrongdoers accountable," while "accountability on the Palestinian side is also woefully inadequate".
In other words, if Israel and Hamas are to avoid an International Criminal Court (ICC) investigation then each needs to show it can conduct an open, thorough inquiry into the actions of its military and hold those in breach of the law to account.One of Israel's best known human rights lawyers, Michael Sfard, says:
"The most important part of the report is the assertion that the Israeli investigation apparatus into suspicions of war crimes is completely inadequate, and that in fact there is a reality of impunity. It is important because this will open the door and even push the ICC prosecutor to open criminal investigations," Mr Sfard says.
What about the International Criminal Court?
Israel has so far refused to sign on to the International Criminal Court.
Palestine acceded to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court on January 2, 2015; the statute came into force on April 1.
On 16 January the prosecutor opened a preliminary examination into the situation in Palestine.
Will anyone be held accountable?
The commission – chaired by former New York supreme court judge Mary McGowan Davis – says Israel's leaders should have been aware as the war progressed that their actions were leading to mounting civilian casualties.
"Those responsible for suspected violations of international law at all levels of the political and military establishments must be brought to justice," the report says.
"The large number of targeted attacks against residential buildings and the fact that such attacks continued throughout the operation, even after the dire impact of these attacks on civilians and civilian objects became apparent, raise concern that the strikes may have constituted military tactics reflective of a broader policy, approved at least tacitly by decision-makers at the highest levels of the Government of Israel."
Of the Palestinian armed groups, the report found: "While some Palestinian armed groups made efforts to direct projectiles, especially mortars, at military objectives, in other cases they targeted villages near Gaza. The majority of projectiles fired by Palestinian armed groups were rockets without guidance systems so they could not be directed at specific military objectives.
"No steps appear to have been taken to ensure effective investigations into actions by Palestinian armed groups, seemingly owing to a lack of political will."
Will anything change?
There's not a high degree of optimism that anything will change in the current political climate, with the two sides as far away as ever from reaching an agreement that might end Israel's decades-long military occupation and decide on the borders of the two states.
And as the UN notes, holding parties to account for the alleged crimes committed in last year's war will be a key factor in whether there is another outbreak of hostilities between Palestinians and Israelis.
There's a wealth of guidance from previous investigations that would help prevent another war, it found.
"The persistent lack of implementation of recommendations – made by previous commissions of inquiry, fact-finding missions, United Nations treaty bodies, special procedures and other United Nations bodies, in particular the Secretary-General and OHCHR – lies at the heart of the systematic recurrence of violations in Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territory."
