Jan 23, 2009

There is evidence that Israel committed war crimes during its three-week onslaught in the Gaza Strip, the UN’s Special Rapporteur on human rights in the Palestinian territories, Richard Falk said on Thursday.

Falk said that the psychological trauma of the civilian population that endured the Israeli assault means that all of Gaza’s 1.5 million residents could be considered casualties. Israelis who are “treated for shock” following Palestinian attacks are counted as injured.

Falk, speaking to Reuters on the phone from his home in California, said called for an independent investigation into whether Israel’s actions amounted to war crimes.

“I believe that there is the prima facie case for reaching that conclusion,” he told a Geneva news conference.

Falk said Israel had made no effort to allow civilians to escape the fighting.

“To lock people into a war zone is something that evokes the worst kind of international memories of the Warsaw Ghetto, and sieges that occur unintentionally during a period of wartime,” Falk, who is Jewish, said, referring to the starvation and murder of Warsaw’s Jews by Nazi Germany in World War Two.

“There could have been temporary provision at least made for children, disabled, sick civilians to leave, even if where they left to was southern Israel,” the Princeton University professor said.