Human Rights Watch on Tuesday released a report titled, “Gaza: Apparent War Crimes During May Fighting.” Taken at face value, the 6,500-word-long document ostensibly details an investigation into the actions of the Israel Defense Forces and Gaza-based terrorist groups during the conflict that took place from May 10-21, 2021.
In reality, though, HRW almost uniquely focuses on four Israeli airstrikes that allegedly “resulted in high numbers of civilian casualties and where there was no evident military target.”
A thorough examination of the claims reveals that the entire foundation upon which the report was constructed is flawed. HRW’s “investigation” — which essentially recycles allegations from other unnamed NGOs and The New York Times — fails to present any concrete evidence to support its accusations. At the same time, Hamas, the US-designated terrorist organization that rules the Gaza Strip, is exonerated of all responsibility for the deaths of civilians in militarized areas under its control.
As media outlets were quick to uncritically publish HRW’s charges (see, for example, here, here and here), HonestReporting did what journalists are supposed to do: namely, delve deep into the report.
We found some problems.
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May 10 Beit Hanoun Incident: What Really Happened?
HRW initially describes an alleged May 10 Israeli missile strike in Beit Hanoun, located in the northern Gaza Strip, that ostensibly took place in the first minutes of the conflict. “Shortly after 6 p.m. on May 10, a guided missile struck near the town of Beit Hanoun and killed 8 people, including 6 children, all apparently civilians, and reportedly injured 18,” the report states. According to HRW, eight people were killed, including five children of the al-Masri family.
While the report asserts — without reservation — that these deaths were caused by “an Israeli-guided missile,” previous research has cast doubt on this. In May, HonestReporting already noted that the explosion in question might have been caused by a Palestinian-launched rocket that fell short of Israeli territory.
Reports by Palestinian and Israeli NGOs that have alluded to this point are simply ignored by Human Rights Watch.
Indeed, IDF radar images show that at least 15 percent of all rockets launched by Hamas and the wholly-owned Iranian subsidiary Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) landed inside Gaza, including in Beit Hanoun, unquestionably killing and injuring many civilians. At 6 PM on May 10, Hamas had just launched a salvo of rockets at Jerusalem, quickly followed by an anti-tank missile that was fired from the northern Gaza Strip.
Crucially, the Meir Amit Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center revealed that the event in Beit Hanoun occurred before the IDF had initiated its anti-terror operation in Gaza.
[…] It can be assumed it was a failed launch or fire by terrorist organizations in the Gaza Strip,” the organization wrote in June. “Nevertheless, the Arab media in Gaza treated the incident as an Israeli ‘massacre,’ and exploited the incident for propaganda purposes against Israel, even though Palestinian organizations have stated the cause of their deaths has not yet been determined.”
The likelihood that Hamas or PIJ bears responsibility for the deaths in Beit Hanoun is furthermore reinforced by four witness statements included in the HRW report. According to their testimony, “shortly before the [alleged Israeli] attack, they heard one or more munitions being launched into Israel from Gaza.”
Related Reading: NYT Collaborates With Terror-linked Palestinian NGO to Push Antisemitic Blood Libel About Children
Unknown Circumstances Surrounding Strikes on Hamas Officials
HRW then goes on to blame Israel for the May 11 and 15 targeting of two buildings, respectively, in al-Shati, a “refugee” camp on Gaza’s coastline. The May 11 strike reportedly killed two Palestinians. Four days later, according to Human Rights Watch, another 10 civilians were killed in the area. While much remains unclear, once again it is Hamas and not Israel that seemingly bears responsibility for these deaths.
Specifically, the IDF said that the Abu Hattab building in al-Shati was targeted on May 15 because “a number of Hamas terror organization senior officials [were] in an apartment used as terror infrastructure.” Subsequently, a strike on an underground terror bunker caused the structure to collapse, unintentionally destroying the homes of at least two families.
As HonestReporting has made stark, the IDF goes to great lengths to avoid harming civilians even as Palestinian terror groups use their people as human shields. Hamas’ tactics amount to a double war crime: it deliberately fires rockets at densely populated Israeli urban centers while hiding behind Gazans to fend off retaliation.
This also seems to have been the case when the Israeli army on May 11 struck the Tiba building. An eyewitness admitted to HRW that a member of Hamas’ al-Qassam Brigades was in the tower at the time of the strike:
One civilian living in the immediate area of the attack, who wishes to remain anonymous, told Human Rights Watch that a member of the al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of Hamas, was in the building at the time of the attack.”
This fact, hidden more than 50 paragraphs into the report, should have been the story. Instead, HRW — along with media like Associated Press — suggests that these attacks might constitute “war crimes;” this, without presenting concrete evidence.
HRW Hatchet Job: May 16 Gaza Buildings Collapse
Finally, HRW highlights the May 16 IDF operation that, according to a military spokesperson, targeted vast Hamas military infrastructure built below the Rimal neighborhood of Gaza City. In the aftermath of what the IDF — and The New York Times — confirmed were precision strikes, three adjacent residential structures nevertheless somehow collapsed, killing 44 civilians.
Last month, these same strikes were the subject of an “investigation” by the NYT. In response, HonestReporting published an article, titled “NYT Hatchet Job: ‘Investigation’ Into Israeli Wartime Strikes Leads to Vicious Insinuations… But Zero Conclusions,” that scrutinized the reporting. Our conclusion: There is no indication that Israeli bombs hit the buildings in Rimal, and the newspaper did not answer the fundamental question of what exactly happened and why.
Nevertheless, Human Rights Watch bases much of its analysis about the May 16 incident on the widely criticized NYT video. Concurrently, HRW somewhat conveniently omitted widely available evidence that Hamas uses residential buildings, hotels, hospitals and even UN schools as launching pads for attacks against Israel.
Related Reading: NYT Hatchet Job: ‘Investigation’ Into Israeli Wartime Strikes Leads to Vicious Insinuations… But Zero Conclusions
HRW Ulterior Motive: A Global Legal Assault on Israel
Accordingly, HRW appears to have an ulterior motive: that is, not to advance the noble cause of human rights but, rather, to set the conditions for an all-out legal assault on Israeli military and political leaders whether at the United Nations, the International Criminal Court or other foreign bodies.
Indeed, HRW makes this eminently clear in the introduction to its report:
On May 27 the UN Human Rights Council established a Commission of Inquiry to address violations and abuses in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT) and Israel, including by advancing accountability for those responsible and justice for victims. The commission should examine unlawful attacks committed by Israeli forces and Palestinian armed groups during the May fighting.
It should also analyze the larger context, including the Israeli government’s discriminatory treatment of Palestinians. The commission’s findings should be shared with the ICC prosecutor and other credible judicial authorities examining the situation, Human Rights Watch said.”
It is no secret that the UN Human Rights Council could very well be the most anti-Israel body in the entire world, as HonestReporting has documented. In other words, HRW is calling on both the judge, jury and executioner to weigh in. Any independent probe by this notorious anti-Israel institution is impossible, and it is equally improbable that members of HRW are unaware of this.
In fact, it is almost as if HRW is taking steps to facilitate the guilty verdict that such a show trial would without a doubt produce.
It is worth emphasizing that, by happenstance, the UN Human Rights Council last week announced that former rights chief Navi Pillay would lead an unprecedented open-ended inquiry into “systematic” abuses in Israel and the Palestinian territories. The probe was triggered during a special session of the council on May 27 — this, in the immediate aftermath of the Israel-Hamas conflict — when it was decided that a commission of inquiry would be formed to investigate “all alleged violations of international humanitarian law.”
Needless to say, Pillay’s record on Israel is atrocious at best, and following the 2014 war between the IDF and Gaza-based terrorist groups she stated that “there seems to be a strong possibility that international law has been violated in a manner that could amount to war crimes.”
So much for an objective observer. And this is to whom HRW would like to pass off its preliminary findings.
In this vein, HonestReporting has similarly compiled numerous articles that question the ICC’s jurisdiction to investigate Israel given that the Jewish state is not a party to the Rome Statute, the court’s founding charter, and keeping in mind that “Palestine” does not meet the criteria for statehood under international law (see here, here and here).
9/10 The @IntlCrimCourt prosecutor should include in his Palestine investigation apparently unlawful Israeli attacks in Gaza that resulted in civilian casualties, indiscriminate Palestinian rocket attacks fired towards Israel and larger context, including apartheid & persecution pic.twitter.com/LCsnAE8gQt
— Gerry Simpson (@GerrySimpsonHRW) July 27, 2021
Notably, Human Rights Watch is also calling on countries to open their own related investigations and prosecute current and former IDF soldiers, basically declaring open season on Israeli citizens worldwide:
Judicial authorities in other countries should also investigate and prosecute under national laws those credibly implicated in serious crimes in the OPT and in Israel under the principle of universal jurisdiction. Governments should also support a strong political declaration that addresses the harm that explosive weapons cause to civilians and commits states to avoid using those with wide-area effects in populated areas.”
Finally, HRW claims that Israel has been derelict in upholding human rights, while simultaneously grouping the only democracy in the region and the autocratic and terror-supporting Palestinian Authority together:
Israel and the Palestinian authorities have shown little or no interest in addressing abuses by their forces, so global and national judicial institutions should step up to break the vicious cycle of unlawful attacks and impunity for war crimes,” [HRW Associate Crisis and Conflict Director Gerry] Simpson said.
These investigations should also address the larger context, including the Israeli government’s crushing closure of Gaza and its crimes of apartheid and persecution against millions of Palestinians,” he added.”
HonestReporting already this year debunked HRW’s libelous claim that Israel has implemented a system of “apartheid.” Moreover, we have produced evidence that the IDF is one of, if not the most moral militaries in the world that employs unique measures to limit civilian casualties.
Given the vast amount of relevant and objective data that HRW simply did not consider in its report, it is hard to see how it accomplishes anything positive for Palestinians or for Israelis. That is, other than to unfairly damage the Jewish state’s reputation while making Palestinians increasingly vulnerable to terrorist organizations that continue to harm all sides with impunity.
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