Israel Research Center: UN Goldstone Report Ignored Facts

Israel Research Center: UN Goldstone Report Ignored Facts

By Joel Leyden, Larry Butchins
Israel News Agency
http://www.israelnewsagency.com/israelungoldstonereportmalamgazaresearchidfhamascastleadhumanshieldsterrorismcivilianswarcrimes48031510.html

Jerusalem ---- March 15, 2010 …. . A year after the Israel Defense Forces Operation Cast Lead confronted the terror group Hamas in Gaza a well respected, Israel intelligence research center finally gets to tell its side of the story.

According to a news report in today’s Jerusalem Post by Military Correspondent Ya’akov Katz, a 500-page report authored by the Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center (Malam) is the first, objective Israel response to the UN Goldstone Report, analyzing it piece-by-piece and explaining the true nature of the conflict against Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

The objective, non governmental Israel research report contains chapters on Hamas’s unethical and immoral use of mosques, hospitals, ambulances and schools. An entire section is dedicated to illustrating how the Palestinian police force in the Gaza Strip, which the UN Goldstone Report claimed was a civilian force, was incorporated into the military wing of Hamas.

Another section explains the events that led Israel to launch the defensive Operation Cast Lead in December 2008 – a time period which was almost completely ignored by Judge Richard Goldstone. An issue illustrated most recently by the interview given by Col. Desmond Travers, the Irish officer who was a member of the panel, in which he claimed only two rockets were fired into Israel in the month preceding the IDF Operation – when in reality, there were close to 200 terror rockets.

What comes to light about the Malam report is that it does not focus on the Israel Defense Forces and the manner in which it operated inside the Gaza Strip. Instead the Israel research report focuses strictly on Hamas, its tactics and the way it cynically used civilians as well as the civilian infrastructure to hide behind and launch rockets against Israel.

“The results are astounding," Katz says.

While Hamas’s immoral use of mosques was known, the Israel Malam research report clearly illustrates that it was extensive and was a center piece of Hamas’s overall military strategy. Over 100 mosques were used to conceal weapons and from which to launch Kassam rockets at Israel civilian cities and towns. While the news about how Hamas terror chiefs hid in the basement of Shifa Hospital in Gaza City has been widely reported, the Malam research report illustrates how the UN Goldstone Report did not reveal maps of other hospitals, surrounded by land mines, Hamas military posts and tunnels.

“While Malam and its director, Col. (res.) Reuven Erlich, should be applauded for their work, the question needs to be asked why a non-profit organization operated by former Military Intelligence officers, is doing what the Israel Foreign Ministry, IDF Spokesman’s Office and Prime Minister’s Office should have been doing immediately after the air force launched its first missile into downtown Gaza City on the first day of the operation," Katz comments.

“The radio has been full of ads from Israel Public Diplomacy Minister Yuli Edelstein’s new PR campaign to get Israelis, during their travels abroad, to explain that they don’t ride on camels or eat only barbecued foods."

“Instead of wasting Israel taxpayer’s money, Edelstein’s budget should have gone to establishing an official Israel crisis communications response team that would be responsible for writing such reports and disseminating them to the media, not a year after the operation but as the fighting is going on," the IDF Gaza Hamas Report from the Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center (Malam) states.

“Until this happens, Israel has only itself to blame for the amount and severity of criticism it faces after every war and operation. And if not for Erlich and his professional team of expert researchers, Israel wouldn’t even have the report that Malam released on Monday. Instead we would be focused on camels and barbecues.”

The Malam Research Report which refutes the UN Goldstone Report states that Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh and almost all of the Hamas leadership slept inside a children’s hospital in Gaza City the night of December 27, 2008, to hide from Israel targeted killings after the IDF launched Operation Cast Lead.

According to the Malam Research Report compiled by the Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center, Hamas used more than 10 hospitals to hide behind during last year’s IDF defensive operation to stop the launch of rockets at Israel towns and to attack IDF troops operating inside the Gaza Strip.

The UN Goldstone Commission Report concluded it could not confirm Israel’s claims that Hamas used hospitals for military purposes during the operation.

“The mission did not find any evidence to support the allegations that hospital facilities were used by the Gaza authorities or by Palestinian armed groups to shield military activities or that medical ambulances were used to transport combatants or for other military purposes,” Judge Richard Goldstone wrote in his UN report.

The Malam report discredits Goldstone’s conclusion and provides declassified intelligence information together with Palestinian testimonies, that Hamas concealed weapons and established command and control centers inside hospitals - even firing rockets and setting up military positions adjacent to these medical centers.

One of the more known cases took place at Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, which Israel said was used during the Gaza operation as a hideout for top Hamas terrorists. According to the Malam report, intelligence obtained by Israel showed that Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh, Hamas Foreign Minister Mohammed Zahar and Hamas Interior Minister Said Siam were situated inside a bunker under one of the hospital’s wards.

Terrorists also set up military posts next to the hospital, from which they fired mortars at IDF troops who discovered a tunnel underneath a mosque located next to the hospital. This Hamas weapons tunnel led to the maternity ward and was used by Hamas terrorists to move undetected between the buildings.

Hamas also set up a control and command center inside one of the children’s hospitals in the Nasser neighborhood of Gaza City, where Hamas leaders slept the night of December 27.

Another Gaza hospital which was extensively used by Hamas was the Al-Fahoura Medical Center in the northern Gaza Strip, next to which Hamas built a training camp and military base.

IDF aerial photographs, revealed in the Malam research report, illustrate that the area around the hospital was heavily mined and that tunnels were dug around the building as well as under the medical center. Hamas rockets were also launched against Israel in close proximity to the medical facilities.

“Hamas did this in its assumption, correctly so, that the Israel Defense Forces would refrain from attacking hospitals and that terrorists would receive so-called immunity by operating there,” the Malam report states.

According to the Jerusalem Post article, Hamas terrorists used Palestinian children as human shields, and established command centers and Qassam launch pads in and near more than 100 mosques and hospitals during IDF Operation Cast Lead in the Gaza Strip last year.

The detailed Malam report stated that the IDF and the Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) cooperated with the report’s authors and declassified hundreds of IDF photographs, videos, prisoner interrogations and Hamas-drawn sketches.

Work on the Malam report began immediately after former Judge Richard Goldstone issued his biased UN report on Israel’s offensive in the Gaza Strip in September of 2009.

One example of the material revealed in the Malam report is a recently classified sketch of the village of Beit Lahiya in northern Gaza. The Hamas sketch, discovered in the home of a Hamas operative together with several improvised explosive bombs (IEDs) and Kalashnikov rifles by IDF troops during the operation, details the extensive deployment of IEDs and snipers inside and adjacent to civilian homes.

“The UN Goldstone Report is a one-sided, biased, selective and deceptive report, since it simply accepts Hamas claims at face value and presents everything through Hamas’s eyes,” stated Malam’s director, Dr. Reuven Erlich, a former IDF colonel in Military Intelligence.

The Malam report also provides an analysis of other sketches found during the IDF defensive operation in the Atatra neighborhood in northern Gaza City. Erlich said this sketch proves Hamas’s culpability for the ensuing death and destruction.

“By placing all of their weapons next to civilian homes, by operating out of homes, mosques and hospitals, by firing rockets next to schools and by using human shields, Hamas is the one responsible for the civilian deaths during the IDF Gaza operation,” Erlich concludes.

The UN Goldstone Report says that its authors “found no evidence that Palestinian combatants mingled with the civilian Gaza population with the intention of shielding themselves from attack.”

The Malam report, however, presents declassified IDF videos that illustrate how Hamas used civilians as human shields and deployed its weapons and command centers inside civilian homes.

In one home, the IDF found a message, written in Arabic that read: “We are your brothers, fighters in this holy war, and we used your home and some of your possessions. We are sorry.”

This note, the Malam’s report states, clearly indicates how Hamas took over civilian homes in Gaza from which to attack Israel forces.

According to a previously undisclosed interrogation of a Hamas terrorist, a Hamas unit transported rockets on the back of a wagon on which children were also sitting. In other cases, the operative revealed, Hamas fighters disguised themselves as women carrying babies to make sure that they would not be attacked by IDF troops.

The intelligence information is documented by videos, including one declassified IDF air force video from January 6, 2009, which illustrates a terrorist shooting at IDF soldiers from the roof of a building. After spotting an Israel aircraft, the terrorist goes to the building’s entrance and calls to nearby civilians to help him escape. A few seconds later, a group of children arrive at the entrance to the home and the Hamas terrorist walks out escorted by the children.

Another video from January 13 clearly illustrates a senior Hamas terrorist, spotted by an aircraft, walking by himself down a street. After seeing the IDF aircraft, the terrorist runs over to an elderly woman walking nearby and continues walking next to her. Later, the IDF discovered that the “elderly woman” was in fact a Hamas terrorist in disguise.

Malam also confronts the UN Goldstone Report for its claim that “the mission found no evidence that members of Palestinian armed groups engaged in combat in civilian dress,” and as a result could “not find a violation of the obligation not to endanger the civilian population in this respect.”

In response, Malam spoke with several IDF officers who provided testimony that the vast majority of Hamas fighters were dressed as civilians. Hamas videos showed fighters – during IDF Operation Cast Lead – wearing civilian clothing while firing mortars and rocket-propelled grenades at Israel Defense Forces solders.

The Malam Research report has an entire section dedicated to Hamas’s use of mosques, revealing intelligence information that Hamas used almost 100 mosques inside Gaza from which to hide from and attack the IDF.

“Hamas systematically used mosques as part of its combat doctrine,” the Malam report states, in contrast to the UN Goldstone Report, which claims that the mission was unable to make a determination about the issue.

The Malam report presents countless videos and photographs of dozens of mosques used by Hamas to store weapons, function as command centers or whose grounds were used as “launching pads” from which to fire rockets into Israel.

The report also details Hamas’s use of hospitals during the offensive, providing evidence that Hamas fired at IDF troops adjacent to such hospitals. They also hid weaponry and senior operatives inside at least eight hospitals in the Gaza Strip.’

The Malam report has an entire section illustrating how Hamas’s police and internal security forces were involved in terrorist activities and were not, as Richard Goldstone claimed, civilian entities whose only duty was enforcing law and order.

In contrast to the internal Israel Defense Forces report which focuses on IDF operations and is prepared for release in the coming months, Malam’s report is about Hamas, its combat tactics and the way it operated from within densely populated urban centers in Gaza, as well as the events that led up to IDF Cast Lead in late December 2008 that Malam says were disregarded by the UN Goldstone Report.

The report highlights four basic flaws in the Goldstone Report: The UN Goldstone Report does not deal with the nature of Hamas – its terrorist aspects and ideology. The UN Goldstone Report minimizes the gravity of the Hamas terrorist attacks against Israel, focusing on rocket fire during the six months before IDF Operation Cast Lead while devoting little space to the rocket and mortar fire that began in 2001. The UN Goldstone Report does not deal with the Hamas military buildup in the Gaza Strip in the year preceding Cast Lead, but at the same time did provide extensive historical coverage of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The UN Goldstone Report ignored the role Iran and Syria activity in Gaza by aiding Hamas and supplying it with explosives and weaponry.

The Malam report states that Hamas used over 100 mosques throughout the Gaza Strip for military purposes during IDF Operation Cast Lead, according to IDF intelligence information revealed in the Malam report which contradicts the UN Goldstone Commission Report.

Malam dedicates an entire chapter to Hamas use of mosques before and during last winter’s IDF defensive operation in the Gaza Strip. This chapter discredits the UN Goldstone Report, whose authors conclude that they could not confirm Israel’s claims that Hamas used mosques for military purposes during the operation.

“The mission was unable to make a determination regarding the [Israeli] allegation,” Judge Richard Goldstone wrote in the UN report.

The Malam report states that the extensive use of mosques in which to conceal weapons and use as launching pads for rocket attacks on Israel, was part of a Hamas strategy based on the knowledge that the IDF would not target civilian infrastructure including mosques. These became perfect storehouses for Hamas weapons and as launching pads for rocket attacks against Israel.

The Malam Cast Lead Report analysis is based on Hamas sketches of neighborhoods that clearly portray that mosques were used as sniper positions, Israel Air Force videos showing massive secondary explosions after mosques were hit as well as reports from IDF soldiers.

One mosque in the Zeitoun neighborhood of Gaza City was raided by Israel Defense Forces troops who discovered a warehouse full of rockets and mortar shells. During the IDF operation, a rocket-propelled grenade was fired at Israel troops from the mosque.

On January 13, 2009, Israel Defense Forces troops entered a mosque in Jabalya in northern Gaza. The mosque was full of Hamas weapons including an anti-aircraft cannon. In a mosque in the Atatra neighborhood in northern Gaza City, IDF troops found a secret warehouse built directly under the podium from where the Imam leads Islamic prayers, which was full of weapons and bombs.

“The Goldstone Report uses obscure language and twists and turns with regard to the military use of mosques,” the Malam Report states. “The UN Goldstone Report refrained from determining that Hamas is responsible for the military use of the mosques, in gross violation of international law, which provides protection for houses of prayer.”

In several aerial photographs, the Malam IDF Gaza research report shows the location of rocket launchers and IEDs that were discovered in immediately next to mosques. In a video taken by the Israel Air Force on January 7, 2009, a rocket was filmed being fired from the courtyard of the Altakua Mosque in Gaza City’s Sheikh Radwan neighborhood. The launcher was attacked and destroyed by the IDF.

In another case, the Israel Defense Forces discovered a bomb along a road in Khan Yunis in the southern Gaza Strip. The bomb was attached to a cable leading to a detonator in a mosque across the street, where Hamas terrorists were waiting to set off the device.

In the southern Gaza Strip, the Israel Defense Forces secured the testimonies of civilians, claiming that Hamas forbade them from entering a mosque in the village of Khirbat Haza several days before the IDF’s ground operation. The Gaza civilians said they later saw Hamas operatives carrying large crates of weapons into the mosque.

The Malam report also quotes testimony obtained from three Hamas terrorists captured during IDF Operation Cast Lead. They show the existence of weapons in mosques; one operative, Sabhi Majad Atar, said he received training on how to use an RPG and fire rockets inside the Balal ben Rabah Mosque in Atatra.

A Fatah terrorist, Hamed Farji Abed Raboo Salah, said that, fearing for their lives, civilians in Gaza stopped praying at the Salah Aldin Mosque in Jabalya after learning that Hamas had stored massive amounts of explosives on the top floors.

Malam was established in 2001 as a non-governmental, private branch of the Israel Intelligence Heritage and Commemoration Center dedicated to the memory of members of Israel’s intelligence community.

Malam publishes weekly reports on a number of subjects, including Hamas, the Palestinian Authority, Hezbollah, and Iran as well as anti-Jewish and anti-Israel incitement and propaganda.

The head of the Malam is former Mossad chief Ephraim Halevi. Dr. Reuven Erlich, a former colonel in Military Intelligence who served in a number of positions in the MI’s Research Directorate, heads the think tank's Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center. Erlich also served as the deputy coordinator of government activities in Lebanon during the 1980s. In addition to Erlich, Malam employs seven researchers, mostly former MI officers, who gather the information used to write the weekly reports. These can be found at www.intelligence.org.il

“We started writing reports in 2001 but got a real boost during Operation Defensive Shield in 2002, based on the documents that were discovered there by the IDF,” Erlich said.

After the release of the UN Goldstone Report in September, Erlich and his staff decided to create a report that would respond to the accusations placed against Israel but particularly, what he called “the distorted presentation of Hamas” in the report.

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