Israeli Military Clears Itself of Wrongdoing in 2014 Gaza War’s ‘Black Friday’

JERUSALEM — Known as “Black Friday,” Israel’s assault on Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip on Aug. 1, 2014, was one of the deadliest and most scrutinized episodes in the 50-day war that summer.

On Wednesday, the Israeli military cleared itself of wrongdoing in the bitterly contested episode. It published the conclusions of the examination into its conduct as Israel eased some restrictions on Gaza and moved to shore up the fragile cease-fire agreements that ended that war.

Human rights groups like Amnesty International have said there was “strong evidence” that Israel carried out war crimes in Rafah by killing scores of Palestinians, most of them civilians. Some accused the Israeli military of firing in revenge, disproportionately and indiscriminately, after Hamas militants abducted a soldier, Lt. Hadar Goldin.

The events bolstered allegations against Israel that became the subject of a preliminary investigation before the International Criminal Court.

But the military said its own examination had found no reason to suspect criminal misconduct.

“The findings clearly provide that the IDF’s actions were aimed to serve a clear military purpose — to thwart the abduction of Lt. Hadar Goldin and attack the terror organizations in the area by targeting military targets and military operatives,” the Military Advocate General of the Israel Defense Forces, Maj. Gen. Sharon Afek, ruled in a detailed report.

At the time, the military believed “that Lieutenant Goldin was still alive,” the report added.

A day later, on Aug. 2, Israeli authorities determined that Goldin could not have survived an initial ambush by the militants, and he was declared killed in action. His remains have not been returned.

An Israeli human rights organization, Btselem, has called for independent inquiries. It has said the military cannot be impartial about its own conduct.

“The Military Advocate General proves again that no matter how high the number of Palestinians killed is, nor how arbitrary the circumstances of their killing by the military was, the Israeli whitewash mechanism he heads will find a way to bury the facts,” the group said in a statement.

Hazem Qassim, a spokesman for Hamas, the Islamic militant group that controls the Gaza Strip, said that “the crime committed on Black Friday was clearly visible” and that the civilians who were killed had presented no threat.

Israel is trying “to escape from international investigations, accountability and prosecution by issuing these results,” he said.

In all, about 2,200 Palestinians died during the 2014 war, while 73 people were killed on the Israeli side, most of them soldiers. A United Nations Commission of Inquiry found that both Israel and the Palestinian militants had been responsible for violations of international law that could amount to war crimes.

The Israeli military’s report was issued hours after Israel lifted restrictions on its main cargo crossing point with the Gaza Strip, ending punitive measures imposed five weeks ago. The easing was a first step in strengthening the cease-fire between Israel and Hamas that has eroded in recent months.

Since late March, the calm has been punctuated by deadly protests and clashes along Israel’s border with Gaza. Hundreds of incendiary devices launched from Gaza on kites and balloons have charred sections of Israeli farmland, and several rounds of cross-border fighting have threatened to escalate into all-out conflict.

The restrictions at Kerem Shalom, Gaza’s main cargo crossing, had banned the import of all goods except food, medicine and “humanitarian equipment,” as well as all exports.

The Israeli military said on Wednesday that activity at the Kerem Shalom crossing had returned to normal, and that the zone off the Gaza Strip where fishing is permitted had been expanded to nine nautical miles, from three, after a few days of relative quiet.

Egyptian officials and the U.N. envoy in the region are now trying to broker a broader arrangement for a long-term truce that would allow significant investment in development projects in Gaza.

But Israel’s defense minister, Avigdor Lieberman, said on Wednesday that any long-term deal with Gaza must include an arrangement for the return of the remains of Goldin and another soldier, Sgt. Oron Shaul, who was also killed during the 2014 war, as well as at least two Israeli citizens who are believed to be alive and held by Hamas in Gaza.

This was not the military’s first inquiry exonerating itself for events in Gaza in 2014. Adalah, a group that advocates for Arab minority rights in Israel, has appealed to Israel’s attorney general to open a criminal investigation and reject the military’s closure of a case involving a drone attack that killed four Palestinian boys on a Gaza beach during the war.

But many have considered the events of that day in Rafah as one of the weightiest cases, not least because of the high number of casualties. At least 135 Palestinians were said to have been killed at the time, after Israeli forces unleashed a barrage of artillery, tank and airstrikes meant to prevent the militants from taking Goldin, who was dragged into a tunnel on the edge of Rafah.

The Israeli military said its troops killed at least 42 Palestinian military operatives in the course of the fighting, and that up to 70 civilians were “unintentionally killed as a result of attacks directed at military targets and military operatives.” After the Hamas ambush that killed Goldin, along with two other soldiers, in the first hour of a 72-hour truce, Israeli commanders invoked the “Hannibal procedure,” a contentious directive that allowed for the use of maximum force to prevent captors from getting away with abducted soldiers — even at the risk of endangering the lives of the Israeli hostages. The directive has since been revoked.

In the first three hours, Israel fired more than 1,000 artillery shells in Rafah and dropped more than 40 bombs. Primary targets included intersections of the main road running through the area and locations that Israel suspected hid shafts leading to the tunnel.

Residents of Rafah were caught in the fire first as they tried to return home after receiving word of the temporary truce, and then as they fled.

In one episode, 16 people were killed during an aerial attack on a home near the Belbisi junction. The military said the assessment was that structures there housed militants connected with the kidnapping and that the kidnapping squad was on its way there. People moving in the street near those structures were identified only after the munitions had been released, the military said, and it was too late to divert the missiles.

One Gazan, Wael Al-Namla, 30, recalled on Wednesday that his family decided to evacuate that day as the sound of the explosions grew closer. A shell hit one of the Belbisi buildings as they passed close by, he said, and more bombs struck as they made their way down the road. He said his brother and his sister-in-law were killed on the spot, their bodies torn apart. Namla, his wife, Israa, and his son, Sharif, who was 3 at the time, all lost legs. His daughter, Abir, who was 2, and other family members suffered severe burns.

“They weren’t hitting any military targets,” Namla said. “The abduction took place underground. We want to see justice, for the soldiers who committed the crime to be prosecuted,” he said, adding, “We expect such reports to be released by Israel.”