Top Military Group: Israel Abided by Intl. Law in Gaza, Conducted "Exemplary Campaign"

Top Military Group: Israel Abided by Intl. Law in Gaza, Conducted "Exemplary Campaign"

By Ben Cohen
The Tower
December 11, 2015

A new report by an multinational group of distinguished military officers has lauded Israel for carrying out an "exemplary campaign" that fully adhered to the norms of international law during the 2014 war in Gaza.

The High Level Military Group (HLMG), which authored the report, was established earlier this year with a remit to examine "the implications for warfare where democratic nations are engaged in fighting enemies who disregard the Law of Armed Conflict (LOAC) but exploit our own nations' adherence to LOAC for their gain."

Rafael Bardaji, a spokesman for the group, emphasized that "In the absence of the appropriate military and legal expertise, the cumulative failure of international institutions and organisations to come to a more accurate assessment of events during the 2014 Gaza Conflict, their attempt to impose unwarranted legal norms, and their failure to make important moral distinctions between the adversaries is a problem not just for Israel."

Bringing together senior officers from the U.S., Europe, South America, and Asia, the HLMG's roster includes Gen. Klaus Naumann, the former German armed forces chief of staff who later served as chairman of NATO's Military Committee; Lt.-Gen. David A. Deptula, the former director of the Combined Air Operations Center in Afghanistan; Col. Richard Kemp, the former commander of British forces in Afghanistan; and Lt.-Gen. Kamal Davar, who served as the first director general of India's Defense Intelligence Agency. The report was compiled on the basis of six fact-finding trips to the region, with its preliminary findings announced in June. . . . [More]