Israel is facing growing demands from senior UN officials and human rights groups for an international war crimes investigation in Gaza
over allegations such as the “reckless and indiscriminate” shelling of
residential areas and use of Palestinian families as human shields by
soldiers.

With the death toll from the 17-day Israeli assault on
Gaza climbing above 900, pressure is increasing for an independent
inquiry into specific incidents, such as the shelling of a UN school
turned refugee centre where about 40 people died, as well as the
question of whether the military tactics used by Israel systematically
breached humanitarian law.

The UN’s senior human rights body
approved a resolution yesterday condemning the Israeli offensive for
“massive violations of human rights”. A senior UN source said the
body’s humanitarian agencies were compiling evidence of war crimes and
passing it on to the “highest levels” to be used as seen fit.

Some
human rights activists allege that the Israeli leadership gave an order
to keep military casualties low no matter what cost to civilians. That
strategy has directly contributed to one of the bloodiest Israeli
assaults on the Palestinian territories, they say.

John Ging,
head of the UN Palestinian refugee agency in Gaza, said: “It’s about
accountability [over] the issue of the appropriateness of the force
used, the proportionality of the force used and the whole issue of duty
of care of civilians.

“We don’t want to join any chorus of
passing judgment but there should be an investigation of any and every
incident where there are concerns there might have been violations in
international law.”

The Israeli military are accused of:

• Using powerful shells in civilian areas which the army knew would cause large numbers of innocent casualties;

• Using banned weapons such as phosphorus bombs;

• Holding Palestinian families as human shields;

• Attacking medical facilities, including the killing of 12 ambulance men in marked vehicles;

• Killing large numbers of police who had no military role.

Israeli
military actions prompted an unusual public rebuke from the
International Red Cross after the army moved a Palestinian family into
a building and shelled it, killing 30. The surviving children clung to
the bodies of their dead mothers for four days while the army blocked
rescuers from reaching the wounded.

Human Rights Watch has called on the UN security council to set up a commission of inquiry into alleged war crimes.

Two
leading Israeli human rights organisations have separately written to
the country’s attorney general demanding he investigate the allegations.

But
critics remain sceptical that any such inquiry will take place, given
that Israel has previously blocked similar attempts with the backing of
the US.

Amnesty International says hitting residential streets
with shells that send blast and shrapnel over a wide area constitutes
“prima facie evidence of war crimes”.

“There has been reckless
and disproportionate and in some cases indiscriminate use of force,”
said Donatella Rovera, an Amnesty investigator in Israel. “There has
been the use of weaponry that shouldn’t be used in densely populated
areas because it’s known that it will cause civilian fatalities and
casualties.

“They have extremely sophisticated missiles that can
be guided to a moving car and they choose to use other weapons or
decide to drop a bomb on a house knowing that there were women and
children inside. These are very, very clear breaches of international
law.”

Israel’s most prominent human rights organisation,
B’Tselem, has written to the attorney general in Jerusalem, Meni Mazuz,
asking him to investigate suspected crimes including how the military
selects its targets and the killing of scores of policemen at a passing
out parade.

“Many of the targets seem not to have been legitimate
military targets as specified by international humanitarian law,” said
Sarit Michaeli of B’Tselem.

Rovera has also collected evidence
that the Israeli army holds Palestinian families prisoner in their own
homes as human shields. “It’s standard practice for Israeli soldiers to
go into a house, lock up the family in a room on the ground floor and
use the rest of the house as a military base, as a sniper’s position.
That is the absolute textbook case of human shields.

“It has been practised by the Israeli army for many years and they are doing it again in Gaza now,” she said.

While
there are growing calls for an international investigation, the form it
would take is less clear. The UN’s human rights council has the
authority to investigate allegations of war crimes but Israel has
blocked its previous attempts to do so. The UN security council could
order an investigation, and even set up a war crimes tribunal, but that
is likely to be vetoed by the US and probably Britain.

The
international criminal court has no jurisdiction because Israel is not
a signatory. The UN security council could refer the matter to the
court but is unlikely to.

Benjamin Rutland, a spokesman for the
Israeli military, said an international investigation of the army’s
actions was not justified. “We have international lawyers at every
level of the command whose job it is to authorise targeting decisions,
rules of engagement … We don’t think we have breached international
law in any of these instances,” he said.