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A Paris-based leftist group, International Federation of Human Rights (FIDH), claimed on Friday that Israel's counter-terror Operation Protective Edge against Hamas in Gaza last summer included "war crimes" and "crimes against humanity."
The war, which began when Hamas launched a massive barrage of rockets on Israeli civilian population centers, "was marked by serious breaches of...international human rights law" on the part of Israel, according to the leftist group as reported by AFP.
In a temporary recognition of the other half of the equation, FIDH condemned the Gaza-based terrorist groups for "indiscriminate firing of rockets and mortars," as well as using civilian structures including schools, cemeteries and mosques, along with planting booby traps to lethal affect and using Gazans as human shields.
But it apparently stopped short of labeling the blatant breaches on the part of the terrorist organizations as "war crimes," instead saying the various acts committed by Hamas and its cohorts did not give the IDF "carte blanche" to "disregard international laws."
FIDH accused the IDF of "indiscriminate attacks on civilians and their residences; attacks on medical facilities, transport and personnel; and attacks on structures providing shelter to internally displaced populations."
The IDF revealed during the war how the Gazan terrorists cynically used civilian infrastructure to launch their attacks against Israeli soldiers and civilians, requiring the IDF to strike those locations while giving countless warnings to reduce civilian casualties.
In spite of the challenges, a detailed study after the war proved 49% of the casualties in Gaza were terrorists, meaning the IDF achieved a 1:1 civilian to combatant ratio almost unprecedented in urban warfare.
By contrast, a report last November revealed that a whopping 96.5% of the casualties from US drone strikes in the Middle East were civilians, after the White House declared last October that its policy banning drone strikes on civilians "does not apply" in its campaign in Iraq and Syria.
While FIDH may have reserved the majority of its accusations for the IDF, Amnesty International revealed in a report on Thursday that in fact it was the Arab terrorists in Gaza who committed war crimes.
The report, the third issued by international bodies on Operation Protective Edge, was the first to deal with Palestinian Arab activities during the operation, as opposed to just those taken by the IDF.