JERUSALEM — The head of a U.N.-appointed expert panel that investigated the Gaza war between Israel and Hamas in the winter of 2008-09 said in a newspaper article that new accounts by Israel’s military indicate it did not deliberately target civilians, his report’s central and most inflammatory accusation.
Israel’s prime minister said the military was vindicated by Richard Goldstone’s acknowledgment in an op-ed piece published Friday by The Washington Post that his conclusion appeared to have been wrong.
The Goldstone Report’s findings, released in September 2009, triggered outrage in Israel, which refused to cooperate with the investigation on the grounds that the panel he led was biased.
“We know a lot more today about what happened in the Gaza war,” Goldstone wrote. “If I had known then what I know now, the Goldstone Report would have been a different document.”
The Goldstone Report concluded both sides committed potential war crimes and possible crimes against humanity.
The Associated Press
