WASHINGTON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--The leader of a JINSA-commissioned task force of retired senior U.S. military officers who studied and reported on the 2014 Gaza conflict issued the following statement about the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) report on that conflict released earlier today. The statement is attributable to General Charles Wald, USAF (ret.), former Deputy Commander of United States European Command (EUCOM):
“The UNHRC report on the Gaza conflict is unbalanced and fails to accurately assess which parties violated the Law of Armed Conflict (LOAC).
“This report follows the same pattern of the UNHRC’s Goldstone Report, which assessed the previous Gaza conflict, but which was later repudiated by Mr. Goldstone himself, as well as being widely discredited by experts in the laws applicable to war. That is, this new report fails to account for the primacy of LOAC in regulating the conduct of combatants, and fails to accurately assess the gross violations of LOAC by Hamas, while inaccurately portraying the actions of the IDF as violations of international law.
“The task force study of this conflict found evidence that Hamas had violated LOAC by intentionally placing civilians in jeopardy to mask military initiatives. U.S. forces will increasingly see this unlawful behavior mimicked in future conflicts against hybrid, non-state forces embedded in urban environments.
“The international community should not accept this inaccurate and biased report and should instead rely on balanced and accurate reports that are authored by actual experts on how to conduct combat operations in accordance with LOAC.”
For the full task force report please visit www.JINSA.org/gaza-assessment.