Israel said that most of the Palestinians who were killed in the recent war on the Gaza Strip were involved in the fighting.
In a special report published on Sunday by the Israeli Foreign Ministry in anticipation of the release the UN Human Rights Council’s report on last summer’s war on Gaza, Israel claimed that 44 per cent of the Palestinians killed during the war were armed fighters, and that the others who died were also suspected of being involved in the war.
The report alleged that Israel examined and investigated cases in which it suspected that innocent people were harmed, including the results of the investigations in the publication.
The 227-page report describes the events that led Israel to launch a war on the Gaza Strip a year ago.
It said that since 2000, Israel has been attacked by more than 15,000 rockets and mortars that were fired from the Gaza Strip.
The report rejects the claim that Israel committed war crimes in Gaza, and accuses Hamas and other Palestinian factions of committing such crimes.
Israel did not submit its counter-report to the UNHRC’s fact-finding commission, which it is boycotting.
The Israeli report alleged that Hamas’s strategy during the Gaza war was to concentrate the fighting in civilian-populated areas and use civilians as human shields.
It also described cases in which it alleges that Palestinian militants were disguised as civilians, the “evidence” being that Hamas established bases in homes and used mosques for sniper attacks and schools for storing weapons.