IDF will not disregard International Court of Justice Rules - Israeli Military Official

During a lecture that the Chief Military Advocate General, Brig. Gen. Avichai Mandelblit, gave on Thursday (Sep 3) in Jerusalem as part of the legal seminar "To fight and to win in the framework of the law", he stressed the IDF's obligation to pay attention to the legal aspect of all of its operations.

"The IDF will not disregard the rules of the International Court of Justice," explains the Chief Military Advocate General. "It's holy in the eyes of all the commanders, and the position of the IDF – and I have already worked with three Chiefs of the General Staff – and it has always been the case, that we need to follow these rules."

"We have made a fundamental decision based on values and traditions to fight according to the law," continues Brig Gen. Mandelblit. The department for the International Court of Justice at the Military Advocate General, has been developing and expanding, as a result of the worldwide growing awareness of the International Court of Justice.

The Chief Military Advocate General also explained that following the Second Lebanon War, it was decided to deepen legal consultation in the IDF, so that today every division would have a legal advisor whose main task it is to determine the legality of the division's fire targets.

One of those targets, in which case the attack would more than undoubtedly have been illegal despite its obvious operational importance, during Operation Cast Lead, was the Shifa Hospital in the Gaza Strip. "If we had bombed Shifa because senior Hamas terror operatives were hiding there, we would have killed 500 civilians, and that is completely out of proportion," says Mandelblit.

The Chief Military Advocate General also described the continuous efforts during Operation Cast Lead to separate the uninvolved civilian population from the terror operatives through phone calls to homes, the distribution of leaflets and the use of the "Knock on the Roof" bomb which warns people and urges them to leave the building. According to the data available to the IDF, two thirds of the Palestinian casualties during Operation Cast Lead were terror operatives.

Brig. Gen. Mandelblit also spoke about the difficulties of fighting in a civilian surrounding that is being used by terrorist organizations, such as Hamas or Hezbollah, and the difficulties rising from the inevitable hitting of uninvolved civilians: "People suffer over these decisions. It is not easy for me or for the commanders. It is not an easy thing to know that you are harming civilians, it is very difficult and we make every possible effort in order to avoid it. In some cases," shares the Chief Military Advocate General, "operations that were legal from a judicial point of view, were canceled by the forces' commanders for ethical reasons. Even when someone fights against you without any laws, from within the civilian population and with the goal of harming the civilian population, you have to treat him according to the laws of humanity."

"Every claim was examined thoroughly and was investigated"

Brig. Gen. Mandelblit informed that every claim made on the subject of legality of IDF operations during Operation Cast Lead was examined thoroughly and was investigated, including over 100 complaints by human rights organizations, twenty of which have been found legitimate and were transferred to investigation by the Military Police. He also said that the soldier who stole a credit card and used it in Israel has already been sent to trial and convicted to a seven month long prison term, his rank was lowered to Private.

The Chief Military Advocate General Mandelblit also emphasized that continuous and thorough self –investigation is of high importance. As an example he used the decision of the Spanish Court to stop the investigation on the circumstances of the assassination of senior Hamas operative Salah Shehade in 2002. "The Spanish courts decided not to investigate Shehade's assassination, because they saw that the Israeli High Court already discussed and decided upon the issue," he explains.

During Operation Cast Lead, according to Brig. Gen. Mandelblit, there were no cases of operationally unnecessary deliberate attacks of uninvolved civilians, and he emphasized that if such a case was uncovered, it would be investigated and judged severely. "If a soldier kills a civilian with a white flag, he is a simple murderer and needs to sit in prison,"

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