Colonel Richard Kemp's Submission On The 2014 Gaza Conflict (I)

Here is the submission by Colonel Richard Kemp, CBE, to the United Nations Independent Commission of Inquiry on the 2014 Gaza Conflict.

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I was a Colonel in the British Infantry. Much of my 29 years’ military service was spent countering terrorism in Iraq, Afghanistan, Northern Ireland, Great Britain, Germany, Saudi Arabia and Macedonia. I was Commander of British Forces in Afghanistan in 2003. I fought in the 1990-91 Gulf War and commanded British troops in Bosnia with the UN Protection Force and in Cyprus with the UN Force.

From 2002 – 2005 I was seconded to the UK Cabinet Office working on intelligence relating to international and domestic terrorism. Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad were among the extremist groups that I monitored and assessed in this role, and I had access to all secret intelligence available to the UK on these and other Palestinian extremist groups.

I was appointed Member of the Order of the British Empire by the Queen in 1994 for counter terrorist intelligence services and Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 2006 also for counter terrorist intelligence services.

I was in Israel for much of the summer 2014 Gaza conflict, specifically from 14 July – 8 August and from 27 August – 5 September. During these periods I met, was briefed by and questioned Israeli political leaders, senior officials and Israel Defence Force (IDF) soldiers from general officer down to private soldier. I spent a considerable amount of this time close to the Gaza border where I also met, was briefed by, questioned and observed many IDF officers and soldiers immediately before and after they had been in combat.

I was in Israel also for much of the Gaza conflict in 2012. I visited IDF units and held meetings with many IDF officers, government officials and political leaders before and since then. I have been acquainted with the IDF and the Israeli intelligence services for many years, both during and after my military service.

This submission to the UN Commission of Inquiry on the 2014 Gaza conflict is based on observations on the ground during the conflict, 29 years’ military experience of conflicts of this type, intelligence work relating to Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad, knowledge of the IDF and Israeli intelligence services, study of the Israel-Palestine conflict and observations on the ground during the 2012 Gaza conflict. I should add that I have no formal, paid or unpaid, connection with the IDF or with any other organ of the Israeli government.

In my opinion the actions taken by the IDF were necessary to defend the people of Israel from the ongoing, intensive and lethal attacks by Hamas and other groups in Gaza. It is the inalienable duty of every government to use its armed forces to protect its citizens and its terrain from external attack.

In this case there was a sustained assault on the Israeli population from rockets and mortar bombs; attacks on Israeli military posts using tunnels; apparent plans to launch further attacks on Israeli military posts and on civilian settlements also using tunnels; and attempted attacks from the sea.

As the Gaza Strip is effectively a separate state, outside of Israeli control, these actions amounted to an attack by a foreign country against Israeli territory. In these circumstances I know of no other realistic and effective means of suppressing an aggressor’s missile fire than the methods used by the IDF, namely precision air and artillery strikes against the command and control structures, the fighters and the munitions of Hamas and the other groups in Gaza. Nor have I heard any other military expert from any country propose a viable alternative means of defence against such aggression.

The only other options, which I do not consider realistic in these circumstances, would have been:

• A strategy of carpet-bombing to force Hamas and the other groups to desist from their attacks.
• A large-scale ground invasion to find and destroy the offensive capabilities of Hamas and the other groups.

Either of these means would have resulted in far greater civilian casualties, and a ground invasion would also have incurred significant numbers of Israeli military casualties. The destruction of Hamas would also have left Gaza under full Israeli control, which would have needed an investment in military resources that Israel could ill afford given the wide range of threats and potential threats that the country faces, including from Iran, from Hizballah in Lebanon and Syria, from the Islamic State in Syria and from Islamist extremists in Sinai.

In reality, the offensive missile capabilities of Hamas and the other groups could never have been totally destroyed using air operations alone. Recognising this, the IDF commanders and their political leadership calculated that to have eradicated the threat completely would have required a ground offensive that would have caused large numbers of casualties among Gaza civilians – far more than were sustained during the operation in the summer. They also took account of predicted Israeli military casualties which would have been substantial.

The consequence was an acceptance that while it would be possible to halt Hamas’s aggression on a temporary basis, there would in the future be a resurgence of such activity, forcing yet another defensive operation along the lines of 2008-09, 2012 and 2014, and causing further Israeli and Palestinian casualties. Though unsatisfactory in the longer term, this was a proportional and pragmatic response – indeed in my opinion the minimum possible response – to the rocket fire from Gaza.

While Israel can act to reduce the prospects for such future action, including by trying to prevent munitions or materiel with the potential for offensive military use entering Gaza, it cannot fully achieve this. In the interests of a lasting peace I would strongly urge the Commission to recommend effective international cooperation against the continued re-militarization of the Gaza Strip.

It is grossly irresponsible of international actors to rely on accusations against Israel of a so-called illegal blockade and occupation of Gaza, and demand that Israeli control of Gaza’s borders be lifted, when it is clear that Israeli action is necessary to prevent the re-armament that will lead to further attacks by Hamas and other groups. It should be noted that Egypt takes similar preventive action against Gaza extremists for the same reason as Israel.

In the absence of effective international pressure and cooperation there is certain to be another Gaza conflict in the coming months and years. This Commission could play a constructive role in advocating an international approach in order to avert further conflict.

Equally, in my opinion the IDF had no alternative than to conduct a limited ground incursion into the Gaza Strip to locate and destroy the attack tunnels that directly threatened Israeli people and territory. This could not have been achieved from Israeli territory alone, especially given the fact that close reconnaissance on the ground inside Gaza was necessary to identify the locations of the tunnels.  Nor could the tunnels have been identified or neutralized from the air without ground forces.

If, as I am asserting, it was necessary for Israel to conduct military action to defend its people against attack from Gaza; and if, as I am also asserting, the IDF conducted, in general terms, the most appropriate form of operations, namely precision air and artillery strikes against the command and control infrastructure and the missile launching infrastructure, and a limited ground incursion to locate and destroy the tunnels; the question then arises as to how these operations were conducted in relation to the Laws of Armed Conflict.

Much of the Hamas military infrastructure was located amongst the civilian population in Gaza. In these circumstances, neutralizing the threat from Hamas made civilian casualties unavoidable. Under the Laws of Armed Conflict this fact does not render such operations illegal assuming they were necessary. However the IDF had a duty to distinguish between legitimate military targets and civilians and to ensure that operations were conducted in accordance with the principle of proportionality as well as necessity.

It is worth emphasizing that proportionality is not, as often believed by critics of Israel, a relationship between the numbers of casualties on either side in a conflict, but a calculation that considers whether the incidental loss of civilian life, injury to civilians or damage to civilian objects would be excessive in relation to the concrete and direct military advantage anticipated in an attack.

From my own research as well as briefings from and discussions with Israeli legal, military and political leaders, I understand and know well the ethos and operating principles of the IDF and I know that their commanders place great emphasis on adherence to the laws of armed conflict. This includes the principle of proportionality, which is set out in Israel’s manual of military law and is recognized by the International Committee of the Red Cross.

The IDF is accountable to the democratically elected government of Israel and also to the Israeli legal system. The laws of Israel require  adherence to the laws of armed conflict as well as domestic military and civilian criminal law. The Israeli military and civilian legal systems – both widely respected by international legal authorities – are empowered to take appropriate action against IDF personnel who transgress domestic or international law. There are numerous examples of such action in relation to previous conflicts. I am aware that such processes are currently underway in relation to the 2014 conflict. 

As with all Western armed forces the IDF codify the relevant laws into rules of engagement that determine when Israeli military personnel may or may not use lethal and less than lethal force and into regulations that govern military conduct in relation to treatment of civilians, enemy combatants and property in an operational area. As with British and US rules of engagement, in normal circumstances IDF rules of engagement keep the IDF soldier within the laws of armed conflict by a significant margin. All Israeli soldiers are trained on these rules and regulations and the IDF emphasizes continuous updating of this training for their troops.

I have frequently questioned senior and junior IDF personnel on these issues and I have found that communication of these directions is effective. In my experience the most junior soldiers in the IDF understand them and the imperative of adhering to them in conflict.

I questioned Israeli commanders and soldiers on the ground on their actions in combat on the Gaza border immediately before and immediately after they were fighting in Gaza and during ceasefire periods. I spoke to soldiers from infantry, tank, artillery and engineer forces.

Many of them expressed frustration at the restrictions imposed upon them by the rules of engagement, in the same way as British, US and other Western soldiers express such frustration. This was generally explained to me as frustration due to the additional risks imposed on their own lives and the lives of their fellow soldiers and also on the reduction in effectiveness against an enemy brought about by adherence to the highly restrictive IDF rules of engagement. The latter relates to restrictions that I was told frequently allowed enemy fighters to escape rather than take the risk that innocent civilians might be killed.

Nevertheless all of the soldiers that I questioned – including those who claimed they were frustrated by these restrictions – accepted and understood the need to adhere to the rules and told me that they and their comrades did adhere to the rules during combat in Gaza. I found this level of acceptance to be higher than would generally be found among soldiers from other Western armies that I have commanded or served alongside. The expressions of frustration also, in my view, tend to confirm adherence to the rules of engagement – even though they didn’t necessarily like the rules they still apparently complied with them.

Many soldiers that I questioned told me about encounters with Palestinian fighters among the civilian population and the steps they had taken to avoid civilian casualties. Soldiers told me that not only were they not permitted to kill, wound or mistreat innocent civilians but also that their own morality would not allow it. For example, one engineer soldier who had recently emerged from a Hamas attack tunnel told me that even while advancing along the tunnel, faced by a wide range of potential threats to his life, uppermost in his mind was the need to avoid killing innocent civilians. He explained that he knew Hamas sometimes used innocent civilians as human shields in the tunnels.

I spoke to a group of IDF pilots who had that morning been flying attack missions against fighters in the Gaza Strip. Again all of them knew, understood and accepted the rules of engagement that applied to them. The level of frustration was reduced, partly because they were in less personal danger than troops on the ground. One of them told me that he had attempted to attack a Hamas target that morning but had aborted the attack because civilians had been identified in the target area. He told me that he had made 10 further attempts to attack the same target and each time the attack was aborted due to the presence of civilians. Eventually he abandoned the mission altogether.

I asked him whether he found this frustrating. He said he did not. He told me that “the best thing about the IAF (Israeli Air Force)” was that they were not allowed to strike a target if they knew civilians were present in the target area. He said that whatever the rules and the laws, in any case he could not live with himself for the rest of his life if he had knowingly killed innocent civilians.

Although I did not witness these events personally I know and understand soldiers, having been a soldier myself and commanded soldiers for 29 years. I know how they think, act and speak. I would know if I was being deceived or misled in such discussions. I do not believe that this was the case and I therefore consider that the comments made to me by IDF soldiers immediately before and after combat were truthful. This was by no means a scientific survey, but my questioning covered a large number of soldiers from a very wide range of IDF units, at different times and in different circumstances and I believe it to be indicative of the true overall ethos of the IDF.

Of course this does not mean that no soldier breached the rules of engagement at any time, whether deliberately or by error. And it does not mean that mistakes were not made that resulted in civilian casualties. I will refer to this later.

I have been briefed in detail on the procedures used by the IDF to avoid civilian casualties in Gaza during the 2014 conflict. I previously commented in relation to the 2008-09 Gaza conflict that no army in the history of warfare had taken greater steps than the IDF to minimise harm to civilians in a combat zone. My observations during the 2014 conflict confirmed this. No other army that I have served in or alongside or that I have studied and researched has yet taken such extensive precautions. This includes British and US forces. It is in part due to the specific circumstances of the Gaza conflict, which allow the IDF to go to such lengths whereas other armed forces in other situations may not be able to do so.

However, during some operations in Afghanistan, British and US forces adopted some methods developed by the IDF in Gaza. And in November 2014, General Martin Dempsey, Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, said that the IDF ‘went to extraordinary lengths to limit collateral damage and civilian casualties’ during the 2014 conflict in Gaza. He revealed that he had sent a delegation of US military officers to Israel to learn about the measures that the IDF took to prevent civilian casualties.

Israel’s emphasis on preventing civilian casualties during this conflict started at the top. The Prime Minister, the Minister of Defence and the Chief of Staff of the IDF made clear their directions that civilian casualties were to be minimised. I was told that the first item on the agenda of every meeting of the Israeli security cabinet during the conflict was Palestinian civilian casualties. This illustrates the priority placed by all elements of the Israeli government engaged in the conflict on minimising civilian casualties in Gaza. 

This flowed down from top to bottom. On questioning military personnel at all levels I found that even the most junior private soldiers on the ground understood and said they complied with this priority.

I was briefed on the following procedures that were routinely implemented prior to launching an attack in Gaza.

• Before a target could be attacked at least two separate and independent intelligence sources had to verify that it was a legitimate military target. Intelligence includes human sources, aerial surveillance, ground surveillance and communications intercept.
• Each separate aerial attack mission had to be personally authorised by the Commander of the Israeli Air Force or one of his deputies, at least one of whom had to be present in the operations centre throughout the conflict.  Authorisation was also subject to legal advice.
• To confirm whether or not civilians were in the target area surveillance had to be conducted by both manned combat aircraft and unmanned air vehicle (drone), the latter enabling greater visual recognition.
• If surveillance or other intelligence sources confirmed the presence of civilians, or the presence of civilians was suspected, one or more of a series of measures was taken to warn the civilians before the attack could go ahead. These measures were:
  • Leaflet drop.
  • Broadcast radio message.
  • Phone call.
  • Text message.
  • Warning via UN.
  • An additional measure was the use of a specially designed harmless air-dropped munition known as ‘knock on the roof’ which was dropped on buildings to make a loud percussion and to warn those inside of an impending attack. 
• Further surveillance was then conducted to confirm the civilians had left the target area. If they had not the attack would not be carried out until they had. 
• Once a pilot was authorised to attack he had authority – and it was his duty – to abort the attack if he had reason to believe civilians were present when he made his attack run. 
• Pilots utilising lazer-guided munitions were required to identify a safe open area in advance so that if civilians were identified in the target zone even after the missile was launched, it could be diverted in flight to the safe area.

I make the assumption that in some circumstances all of these procedures could not be followed, for example in an air operation in support of ground forces in danger. This might require more rapid action than these procedures would allow.

All of the procedures described above were not of course applicable to ground operations although the principles that brought them about did apply, namely the need to avoid or minimise civilian casualties. A further consideration for ground operations was the safety of the IDF’s own forces. This factor was less significant in relation to pilots, to whom the danger from enemy fire was greatly reduced.

As any military commander must minimise the risk of civilian casualties in a combat zone so he must also minimise the risk of casualties to his own forces for moral reasons, because of his duty of care and for reasons of fighting morale and combat effectiveness against the enemy. This is often overlooked when investigating human rights issues in a conflict. But every military commander must take this factor into account when calculating necessity and proportionality in his decision-making. 

This consideration is an important factor that affects the extent of civilian casualties in ground combat, including in Gaza, and will sometimes lead to increased civilian casualties. A further factor is the inaccuracy of some ground combat systems compared to air systems, for example the infantry assault rifle compared to precision-guided munitions.

Additionally even the best trained ground forces are inevitably affected by fear, exhaustion, pain, smoke, noise, enemy fire, disorientation, sensory distortion, confusion and death and destruction around them. In a combat situation there can be so many moving parts and so much chaos that inevitably errors occur and some of these lead to unintentional civilian casualties.

A further likely cause of civilian casualties – both from the air and the ground – was equipment malfunction. Weapon guidance systems fail, computers fail, surveillance systems fail, communications fail or are distorted, explosives act aberrantly.

There is also non-combat related human error. This applies in all human activities and in all walks of life and it also applies in military operations. It is possible that this was the cause of some of the casualties in Gaza.

Nor is intelligence a perfect science – far from it. Undoubtedly there will have been cases where IDF commanders believed that an area was free of civilians. There will also have been cases where commanders believed civilians to be fighters. This circumstance is difficult to avoid when an enemy is uniformed; far more difficult when fighters such as Hamas do not wear a uniform and indeed deliberately endeavour to appear to be civilians.

None of these things are inherently wilful and therefore their consequences are unlikely to be criminal in nature.  Anybody who doubts the relevance of these factors need only consider friendly fire incidents that occur on virtually all battlefields even with 21st Century technology. A number of IDF deaths were caused by friendly fire during this conflict. It is hardly likely that these would have been deliberate. They were also likely the result of battlefield conditions, human error, weapon inaccuracy and technical failure.

However, as with all armies the IDF have bad soldiers. Wilfully or through carelessness or negligence, such individual soldiers may have been responsible for some civilian casualties and for other wrongdoing such as ill treatment of civilians or fighters or damage to property, looting and theft. Such actions may be criminal and may have led to war crimes or offences against military discipline during this conflict. 

I have been briefed in detail on the IDF system of fact-finding, learning lessons for the future, investigation and criminal and military legal action against offenders. This system is not exclusively an internal military process; the Supreme Court of Israel oversees it. It is a system that enjoys wide respect among international legal authorities.

(End of Part One. See Part Two)