Q&A: A former UN investigator sees Israel behind the Gaza hospital attack

Desmond Travers, who spent 40 years in the Irish military, was part of the famous three-member United Nations Fact-Finding Mission, which investigated war crimes during the Israeli incursion into Gaza in 2008-09.

The commission was headed by Richard Goldstone, a well-known Jewish South African judge, and also included Hina Jilani, a senior lawyer from Pakistan.

In a period of three weeks, more than 1,400 people were killed in the Israeli military operation, almost all of them Palestinians.

The Goldstone Report, as the commission’s finding came to be called, found Israel largely responsible for committing human rights violations and war crimes in such instances as when Israeli soldiers blindfolded Palestinians and used them as human shields during house searches.

“While the Israeli Government has sought to portray its operations as essentially a response to rocket attacks in the exercise of its right to self-defence, the Mission considers the plan to have been directed, at least in part, at a different target: the people of Gaza as a whole,” the report said.

The UN Mission found that the Israeli military fired white phosphorus shells at a UN compound and Al Wafa hospital. It deliberately targeted civilians in violation of the Geneva Convention and the principle of using proportional force against armed opponents.

The Israeli government didn’t cooperate with the fact-finding mission and didn’t allow it to enter Gaza from its own territory. The mission’s members went to the Palestinian enclave via Egypt to interview people and collect evidence.

After the Mission’s report was published, Goldstone faced immense Israeli propaganda with some even labelling him as a “self-hating Jew”.

Israel once again faces accusations of committing war crimes in Gaza where more than 3,780 Palestinians, many of them women and children, have been killed since October 7.

TRT World interviewed Desmond Travers, one of the Mission’s members, over the phone, to know what he thinks about Israel’s latest military operation and the deadly attack on the Christian charity-run hospital in Gaza.

The interview has been edited for clarity.

TRT WORLD: Israel says it didn’t attack Al Ahli Arab Hospital in Gaza and that it was actually a Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) rocket, which misfired and killed civilians taking refuge on its compound.

DESMOND TRAVERS: I have investigated rockets that were fired from Gaza that failed to exit Gaza during past conflicts and I do not consider that they were very lethal when they impacted. In the two or three cases, I examined the damage they did and it was negligible. For that reason whatever occurred in the hospital in Gaza, I do not think was caused by a Palestinian Jihad rocket.

An expert whose opinion I respect in the West has come up with an opinion based upon the impact size of the detonation and the sound of the detonation and their opinion is that this was an impact from a missile or a guided bomb and that the missile or bomb would be 100 to 250 kilogrammes. There are many Western bombs and missiles that fall into such a category and those bombs and missiles are available to NATO in the West. And indeed with the Israeli defense forces.

So my opinion is that until we have physical evidence of the impact site, it would be hazardous to offer a more precise opinion than the one I gave you.

But it has been more than 11 years since you studied the rocket arsenal of Palestinian armed groups. Surely, they must have upgraded their weapons, which can cause much more damage?

DT: Well if the Palestinian groups had acquired more lethal rockets then those weapons would have manifested themselves in the recent attacks in Israel. I see little evidence of that.

Your question is a good one.

For example, the range and accuracy of the weapons appear to have significantly improved and truthfully maybe the energy in the warheads may have improved. But I do not think the Palestinian groups have a munition of 100 kg to 250 kg payload. They haven't arrived at that level of competence yet.

But that does not redeem them because we know from the terrorism in Ireland that people can place quantities of explosive material in a particular site and detonate it, of course, but I do not agree with the Israeli estimation that it was a Hamas or Palestinian Islamic Jihad rocket.

Some security analysts on social media pointed out that there’s not a deep enough crater to suggest that it was indeed an Israeli missile.

DT: That could suggest the use of an improvised explosive device whose energy went upwards rather than downwards. In other words, it was in place before it exploded rather than dropped from an altitude.

The other explanation is that a missile of some sophistication can have a proximity fuse, which prevents it from creating a crater because a crater is a waste of energy. A crater means a lot of the explosive energy does not do what is intended for it to do, which is to destroy the surrounding area.

Missiles with proximity fuses are designed to explode at a certain distance above ground. And that technology is very definitely with one side (Israel) and not with the other.

During your fact-finding mission in 2009 did you find any evidence to suggest that Hamas or other resistance groups fire rockets at Israel from cover of civilian facilities such as hospitals?

DT: The conflict between Palestinians and Israelis is replete with accusations and counter-accusations.

My personal experience is that a statement made by one belligerent about another cannot and ought not to be believed until it can be physically proven.

So, for example, apartment complexes that overlooked Israeli military positions were destroyed with very, very accurate precision bombs called JDAMs (Joint Direct Attack Munition), which utterly destroy an apartment complex in one drop of one bomb, mainly because it was to deny enemies observation into their position even though there was nobody in the apartment at the time. But nevertheless, to me, it is wanton destruction of premises simply because it was there for an Israeli military commander to see.

And the only time I ever saw civilians being used as hostages was when Israelis used young Gazan men and tied them to the front of their vehicles as they advanced forward and they were the ones who used hostages, not Palestinians.

Why didn’t Israel cooperate with the UN Fact-Finding Mission?

DT: In my opinion it was because they knew that they were the attacking force and that any information that they would give would embarrass them. They would have to tell untruths, which could be easily verified.

But we did actually get to talk to a lot of Israeli citizens, including the mayor of one of the two cities in southern Israel. We met the Israelis and they had many complaints about Gaza rockets and how the rockets had terrorised their communities for years and that investors would never invest in southern Israeli areas because they found that their investments were not safe enough. Palestinian rockets had affected them very badly emotionally but also economically. I understand and respect that point of view.

What advice would you give to investigators who will visit Gaza after the conflict ends?

DT: Gaza reminds me of our terrorist troubles in Ireland where people stopped talking out of fear.

So you need forensic and police investigators of considerable subtlety and sensitivity in order to fully appreciate the limits Palestinians face in talking to you.

What is extraordinary about the Gaza citizens is that they are very slow to talk about one side or the other because they understand they can be easily compromised. Their information is in the possession of others opposed to them.

So many Palestinians from Gaza at some time in their life, if they have families, have to exit Gaza to go to a hospital in Israel or to seek education or employment elsewhere or to trade with Israelis. And therefore they know that when they cross the border, they can be interviewed and met by very interesting gentlemen who are not friendly.

I fully understand the need for people in Gaza to be very economical with information.

I understood that perfectly. As an Irishman under British rule, my father and my grandfathers would have understood the Gazans perfectly.