Authors of Gaza Goldstone report: we stand by our findings

Apr 14, 2011, 12:38 GMT

London/Tel Aviv - Three members of a United Nations fact-finding mission said Thursday there was 'no justification' for reconsidering their report into the winter 2008-09 Gaza war.

Their statement came two weeks after mission head Richard Goldstone said he had second thoughts about some of the report's findings.

The Goldstone report accused both Israel and the Islamist Hamas movement ruling Gaza of having committed war crimes and possibly crimes against humanity.

'Aspersions cast on the findings of the report (...) cannot be left unchallenged,' British international law Professor Christine Chinkin, former Irish peace-keeper Desmond Travers, and Pakistani lawyer Hina Jilani said in a statement published in Britain's Guardian newspaper.

'We firmly stand by these conclusions,' they continued.

In an article in The Washington Post, titled 'Reconsidering the Goldstone Report on Israel and war crimes,' Goldstone had written: 'If I had known then what I know now, the Goldstone report would have been a different document.'

The South African judge said he now had reason to believe Israel had not deliberately killed Palestinian civilians.

The report examined a number of cases, in which Israel allegedly 'carried out direct intentional strikes against civilians.'

In the April 1 article, Goldstone said he now knew that the most serious attack described in his report - the shelling of a home that killed some 29 members of the same family - had not been deliberate, but the result of an Israeli commander's 'erroneous interpretation of a drone image.'

He expressed regret that Israel had refused to cooperate with the mission.

Goldstone's opinion piece prompted Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin to demand the report be annulled, while President Shimon Peres demanded an apology.

But without mentioning Goldstone by name, Chinkin, Travers and Jilani implied that Goldstone had been the subject of intense political pressure.

The four members of the fact-finding mission had been subject to 'personal attacks' and 'extraordinary pressure,' they said.

'We concur in our view that there no justification for any demand of expectation for reconsidering the report, as nothing of substance has appeared that would in any way change the context, findings or conclusions,' Chinkin, Travers and Jilani wrote.

'Calls to reconsider or even retract the report, as well as attempts at misrepresenting its nature and purpose, disregard the rights of victims, Palestinians and Israeli, to truth and justice,' they said.

Some 1,400 Palestinians, many of them civilians, were killed in the December 27, 2008 - January 18, 2009 offensive, in relentless shelling from the air, sea and ground of Hamas targets in the densely populated coastal enclave.

Thirteen Israelis were killed by rockets and during ground fighting.

It is unlikely that the report will be withdrawn, the Guardian wrote, since the UN human rights council which commissioned it has said it can only be dropped if all four authors make a formal written complaint or if the council or the UN General Assembly votes to withdraw it.

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