ISRAEL DEFENDS ARMY CONDUCT

An internal Israeli investigation has concluded that the country's military acted in accordance with international law during the recent war in Gaza. Reporting its findings on Wednesday, the military rejected allegations of war crimes from human rights groups and some UN officials.

The groups had criticised the Israeli army's conduct during the three-week offensive.
The army "maintained a high professional and moral level while facing an enemy that aimed to terrorise Israeli civilians", the Israel Defence Forces (IDF), as the military in Israel is called, said in a statement.
It said it conducted five separate investigations into some of its actions during the war, including attacks on and near UN and international facilities and the use in densely populated areas of white phosphorous, a chemical agent that causes severe burns.
"The enemy booby-trapped its houses with explosives, fired from the schools attended by its own children and used its own people as human shields while cynically abusing the IDF legal and ethical commitment to avoid injuring uninvolved civilians," the Israeli military said.
The military said its investigations "revealed a very small number of incidents in which intelligence or operational errors took place during the fighting".
Major-General Dan Harel, the army's deputy chief of staff, said among these incidents was an attack on a residence in the southern Gaza City neighbourhood of Zeitun, in which 21 people were killed.
"These unfortunate incidents were unavoidable and occur in all combat situations," the military said.
Courtesy: Al Jazeera