Soldiers protest criminal investigations into Gaza war

Over 250 reserve officers and soldiers have sent a letter to IDF Chief of General Staff Lt. Gen. Benny Gantz demanding an end to criminal investigations by military police into a number of incidents that resulted in Palestinian civilian deaths during the summer war with Hamas in Gaza, the Hebrew daily Yedioth Ahronoth reported Monday.

The IDF’s legal division, the Office of the Military Advocate General, has been reviewing dozens of incidents involving the deaths of civilians during Operation Protective Edge. Of those, the MAG has ordered 13 criminal investigations to date, against soldiers suspected of deviations from protocol that resulted in avoidable casualties.

Although a final decision has yet to be made, the MAG is considering opening a criminal investigation into one of the most hotly debated episodes of the war: the IDF’s response to the August 1 abduction of Hadar Goldin in the densely populated city of Rafah. Palestinian officials say the massive Israeli counterstrike — meant to cut off all escape routes and to foil the kidnapping — resulted in the deaths of as many as 150 civilians.

A July 24 strike on an UNRWA school in the northern part of the Strip, in which 14 people were killed, and a July 16 airstrike that killed four children on a beach in Gaza, are two more high-profile incidents under criminal investigation.

The officers behind the letter said the probes should not be carried out by criminal investigators but rather by senior IDF officers who are familiar with the operation, terrain and combat missions.

“We do not need to justify ourselves to people, who with all due respect, have never been on the battlefield,” the letter said, according to Yedioth.

The letter’s signatories said criminal investigations could prevent soldiers from making critical decisions in future operations.

“I have been investigated by military police before, and even though I know I haven’t done anything wrong, it’s still not a very nice feeling,” a deputy commander in a reserves infantry unit wrote in the letter. “When I am in a problematic combat situation, I don’t need to be thinking about being criminally charged for it in the future.”

The authors said they were not opposed to internal investigations in principle, but that they were wary of a criminal investigation of military orders during combat situations.

The investigations come in advance of a United Nations Human Rights Council report, which is expected to accuse Israel of war crimes, a charge the government and the IDF deny.