UN condemns 'war crimes' in Gaza 联合国谴责加沙地区的“战争

There is evidence that both Israeli and Palestinian forces committed war crimes in the recent conflict in Gaza, a long-awaited official UN report says.

一项联合国长期正式报告称，以色列和巴勒斯坦的军队都承认在加沙地区最近的冲突中犯下战争罪。

Israel said the conflict was to end rockets attacks from Gaza

It accuses Israel of deliberately¹（故意地） using "disproportionate（不成比例的） force" in the three-week operation in December and January.

The report also condemned² rocket attacks by Palestinian groups which Israel says sparked its offensive.

Palestinians and human rights groups say more than 1,400 Gazans were killed, but Israel puts the figure at 1,166.

Three Israeli civilians⁴ and 10 Israeli soldiers were also killed.

Israel, which had refused to co-operate with the UN fact-finding team, said the report was "clearly one-sided".

The investigation⁵, led by South African judge Richard Goldstone, found evidence "indicating serious violations⁶ of international human rights and humanitarian⁷ law were committed by Israel during the Gaza conflict", a UN statement said.

Israel also "committed actions amounting to war crimes, and possibly crimes against humanity".

The Israeli operations, the document states, "were carefully planned in all their phases as a deliberately disproportionate attack designed to punish, humiliate⁹（蒙羞，屈辱） and terrorise a civilian³ population".

Civilian targets

The report accuses Israel of imposing¹⁰ "a blockade which amounted to collective punishment" in the lead-up to the conflict.

It says "the Israeli military operation was directed at the people of Gaza as a whole".

The reports says Israel must be held accountable for its actions during the war, a process which could lead to the conflict being referred to the International Criminal Court.

The report found there was also evidence that Palestinian groups had committed war crimes, and possibly crimes against humanity, in their repeated rockets and mortars¹¹ attacks（迫击炮攻击） on Israel.

It says the launching of rockets which "cannot be aimed with precision at military targets" breaches¹² the fundamental principle of sparing civilian lives.

"Where there is no intended military target and the rockets and mortars are launched into civilian areas, they constitute a deliberate attack against the civilian population," it said.

It also calls for the immediate¹³ release of Gilad Shalit, the Israeli soldier seized in a Palestinian raid in 2006 and taken to Gaza.

Both the Israeli and Palestinian authorities are criticised for the treatment of their own civilians during the conflict.

Israel's interrogation（审问，问号） of political activists¹⁴ and repression¹⁵（抑制，制止） of criticism of its activities had "contributed significantly to a political climate in which dissent¹⁶（异议） was not tolerated", it said.

Meanwhile, the alleged¹⁷ "arbitrary（任意的，恣意的） arrests" and "extra-judicial executions" of Palestinians by the authorities in both Gaza and the West Bank were also criticised.

'No mandate¹⁸'

Israeli government spokesman Mark Regev told the BBC the report had been "born in sin" and had no mandate（命令，指令） for its investigation.

The authorities in Gaza and the West Bank did co-operate with the UN mission, but Hamas, which controls the Gaza Strip, has also dismissed the report as "political, unbalanced and dishonest".

Ismael Radwan, a senior Hamas official in Gaza, was quoted by AFP news agency as saying it "puts on the same level those who perpetrate（做，犯） crimes and those who resist".

Mr Goldstone rejected such allegations, and told the BBC that "fair minded people" should read the report and "at the end of it, point out where it failed to be objective or even-handed".

The 574-page document recommends that authorities in both Israel and Gaza be required to investigate the allegations and report to the UN Security Council within six months.

The Israeli military insists troops acted lawfully¹⁹ during the conflict.

The government says it has carried out more than 100 investigations²⁰ into allegations of abuses by its forces - most were dismissed as "baseless" but 23 criminal investigations are still pending²¹.

It reiterated²²（反覆地说，反覆地做） that it was "committed to acting²³ fully⁸ in accordance with（符合，一致） international law and to examining any allegations of wrongdoing by its forces".

The full report - which is based on 188 interviews, more than 10,000 pages of documentation and 1,200 photographs and other material - will be presented to the UN Human Rights Council at the end of this month.

Eight months after the conflict, very little reconstruction²⁴ has taken place in Gaza because of the strict Israeli-imposed blockade which bans all but essential supples²⁵ from entering the enclave（被包围的领土）.

The stated aim of the blockade is to weaken Hamas's leadership but aid agencies say it serves only to punish the civilian population.