This is simply a stunning vindication of the IDF’s conduct during the last Gaza war (hat tip: Jonathan).
Last week, the High Level Military Group (HLMG), made up of 11 former military and intelligence leaders from five continents, released a report on the IDF’s conflict with Hamas in Gaza last summer.
You can read the report here; it is long but you can even skip to the conclusions on page 70. Here are the main ones of note:
- “Israel had no choice but to defend its citizens from the rocket assault launched by Hamas and other Palestinian terrorist groups and the threat posed by the cross-border assault tunnels. The responsibility for the outbreak of the 2014 Gaza Conflict must be squarely ascribed to Hamas, which sought violent confrontation in an effort to seek to improve its strategic situation.”
- “We can be categorically clear that Israel’s conduct in the 2014 Gaza Conflict met and in some respects exceeded the highest standards we set for our own nations’ militaries. It is our view that Israel fought an exemplary campaign, adequately conceived with appropriately limited objectives, and displaying both a very high level of operational capability as well as a total commitment to the Law of Armed Conflict. It did this under challenging circumstances on a formidably complex urban battlefield. This is not to say that the IDF did not make mistakes, which are inevitable in the context of urban warfare against an enemy such as Hamas, that purposefully hides behind a civilian population.”
- “..the IDF not only met its obligations under the Law of Armed Conflict, but often exceeded them, both on the battlefield and in the humanitarian relief efforts that accompanied its operation. In many cases where the fighting was concerned, this came at significant tactical cost to the IDF. It fought under restrictive Rules of Engagement and it is obvious that instances existed throughout the conflict where the IDF did not attack lawful military objectives on account of a deliberate policy of restraint. The IDF also used a number of highly innovative tactics over and above the necessities of the precautions required by the Law of Armed Conflict. It further used its formidable intelligence capability in an effort to contain its action as closely as possible to Hamas’s assets and protect the civilian population amid which these were purposely and unlawfully embedded.”
- “Hamas not only flagrantly disregarded the Law of Armed Conflict as a matter of course as part of its terrorist-army hybrid strategic concept, but rather it abused the very protections afforded by the law for military advantage, putting the civilian population of Gaza at great risk.”
- “No country would accept the threat against its civilian population that these rockets present to Israeli population centres. Members of the High Level Military Group, many of whom had never visited the country prior to our fact-finding visits were united in their view that Israel’s efforts were entirely justified, appropriately conceived and lawfully carried out, and necessary in the defence of that country’s national security.”
- Following our professional assessment of IDF conduct, several members of the HLMG expressed strong concerns that the actions and practices of the IDF to prevent collateral damage were so extensive, over and above he requirements of the Law of Armed Conflict, that they would curtail the effectiveness of our own militaries, were they to become constraining norms of warfare enacted in customary law. “
Of course, the haters, antisemites and ignoramuses of the world will still peddle the lie that we committed war crimes and are genocidal.
But I prefer to trust the word of the experts, and so should you.
