Politician breaks down during testimony to Gaza UN panel

Recordings of Eshkol Council chief Haim Jelin’s testimony last week to a UN commission in Geneva, in which he breaks down while describing heavy shelling of his region on the Gaza Border, were published by Army Radio on Sunday.

Jelin, an outspoken southern politician who is looking to move into the Knesset with the Yesh Atid party, was one of several Israelis affected by the summer war with Gaza to testify to the UN panel.

The William Schabas-headed commission was established by the UN Human Rights Committee in Geneva to examine allegations of war crimes committed by both Israel and the Palestinians during the war, and has been widely derided by Israeli officials as unfair and a “kangaroo court.”

The Eshkol Region was one of the hardest hit during the war, absorbing hundreds of shells and rockets as well as underground infiltration attempts by Hamas-led fighters in the Strip.

Jelin broke down crying while describing the death of Daniel Tragerman, a 4-year-old boy killed by a mortar shell on August 22. “Every day between 100 and 120 mortar shells explode in our communities, with almost no IDF response, and on Friday Daniel Tragerman, a child 4.5 years of age, who understands that when he hears the Color Red siren he needs to reach shelter… but he doesn’t make it. This is his photograph: a child 4.5 years old. What is he to blame for? He’s to blame for not making it in 15 seconds to the safe room.”

“I am sorry for being so emotional, but they say testimony is part of therapy, and I did not have a chance to cry since then,” he continued.

Gila Tragerman, mother of Daniel, testified earlier before the UN commission via Skype.

“I told them that Hamas fired from inside [Gazan] population centers with the clear knowledge that the IDF would not bomb them. And they were not wrong. The IDF really did not bomb them. Why? Because we don’t hurt innocent civilians,” she said in an interview with the Yedioth Ahronoth daily Thursday. “I told them that we were also refugees during the war.”

The Prime Minister’s Office and Foreign Ministry gave the green light for the unofficial delegation, which was created by the International Association of Jewish Lawyers and Jurists, but made clear to them that they were speaking as Israeli citizens and not as representatives of the state.

The appointment of Schabas to the commission in August infuriated Israel, which accused him of holding views highly critical of the Jewish state. Schabas has said in the past he would be happy to see Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu prosecuted for war crimes.

Jerusalem said it will not cooperate with the probe or send officials to testify, though the commission has sought Israeli statements.

During his testimony to the commission, Jelin acknowledged the “risk” of coming to testify.

“We are always being blamed of warmongering, that we are, in fact, a nation that hates other nations. If you only know to what degree we raise our young to love the other… so I understand this is how the world sees us. And this is why I came here, it’s a great risk for me coming here, I can be attacked. And I received a decision of coming here, to speak our truth, what we have been living through for the past 15 years,” he said.

Jelin recounted to the commission the horror of living with threat of the cross-border tunnels dug by Hamas.

“The fear that terrorists might emerge from beneath the ground, you must understand, you go underground, you get into the metro and you travel. This is not the same thing. This is about terrorists traveling underground to kill children and innocents on the other side.”