UN Accuses Israel of 'War Crimes' against Hamas
Thursday, July 24, 2014
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ISRAELI-GAZA BORDER -- Hamas launched nearly 80
rockets at Israel on the same day the U.N. Human Rights Council decided
to investigate the Jewish state for war crimes.
Israel came under fire for attacking the Wafa
Hospital on Tuesday. The IDF released footage showing how Hamas used the
hospital to shoot at Israel along with a phone conversation about how
the hospital was empty.
"This use of human shields is extraordinarily cynical.
It's grotesque. It's inhuman. But what is equally grotesque is that
Israel was condemned in the Human Rights Council. It's a travesty of
justice," Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said.
Meanwhile, Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal said his group is simply defending what he called Palestinian land.
Israel emphasizes the playing field is not level.
While Israel gives up the element of surprise and
puts its own soldiers at risk by warning Palestinians civilians to leave
the places it will attack, Hamas actually uses its own civilians as human shields.
Yet with firepower on its side and footage of
devastation on the terrorists' side, Israel is often at a loss to
present its case.
"I think people see the effectiveness of Israel's
defense systems, of the Iron Dome, of their warning systems, shelter
systems, and they see as a consequence of those measures that Israel has
invested a huge amount of money, that there are very few casualties on
the Israeli side," Richard Kemp, former commander of British forces in
Aghanistan, told CBN News.
Kemp said Hamas, not Israel, is committing the war crimes.
"On the contrary, [on] the Hamas Palestinian side in
Gaza, no money's been invested in putting civilians in shelters…That's
[the reality] and people see casualties, they see footage of casualties,
they automatically assume therefore Israel must be committing a war
crime," he explained.
Meanwhile, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry continued his shuttle diplomacy toward reaching a ceasefire.
"I can tell you that in the last 24 hours [I've] made some progress in moving toward that goal," Kerry said.
In the meantime, Operation Protective Edge entered
its seventeenth day. IDF artillery batteries continued firing at Hamas
targets in the Gaza Strip.
One of the main goals of the IDF remains finding and destroying the many infiltration tunnels dug by Hamas inside Israel
" If there is no border, if there is no boundary, if
there is no limit to their access, then we are completely exposed and
there is no line of defense," IDF Spokesman Lt. Col. Peter Lerner told
CBN News. "It's an unbearable reality."
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