TEL AVIV, Israel - The Israeli military said Wednesday its internal investigations concluded it did not violate international law during the Gaza war, bluntly deflecting war crimes allegations by human rights groups.
Rights activists renewed their call for an independent inquiry, saying the military was "incapable" of looking at "the whole range of violations."
In Norway on Wednesday, a group of lawyers filed a complaint accusing 10 Israelis, including former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Defense Minister Ehud Barak, of war crimes. Norway's chief prosecutor Siri Frigaard told The Associated Press she will now determine whether there are grounds for charges or a police investigation.
Israel launched its three-week offensive on Dec. 27 to try to halt daily rocket attacks from Gaza that had terrorized southern Israel for years and brought one-eighth of its population within rocket range. The use of air and ground power against Hamas, which overran Gaza in June 2007, was unprecedented in Israel's war against Palestinian militants, who operated from within residential areas.
Palestinians say more than 1,400 Gazans were killed, including more than 900 civilians. However Israel's deputy military chief of staff, Brig. Gen. Dan Harel, gave a lower figure at a briefing for reporters in Tel Aviv. He said 1,166 Palestinians were killed, including 709 Hamas and Islamic Jihad militants. Harel said 295 of the dead were civilians and the identity of an additional 162 could not be confirmed.
The military conducted five separate investigations into some of its most controversial actions during the war, including attacks on and near UN and international facilities, shooting at medical workers and hospitals and facilities and the use in densely populated Gaza of white phosphorus, a chemical agent that causes horrific burns.
The investigations uncovered "a very small number of incidents" in which intelligence or operational errors took place during the fighting, the military said. One included an airstrike that killed 21 members of the same family.
"These unfortunate incidents were unavoidable and occur in all combat situations, in particular of the type that Hamas forced on the (Israeli military), by choosing to fight from within the civilian population," the military concluded in a report issued at the briefing.
The military said it maintained "a high professional and ethical level" while facing an enemy that took cover among uninvolved civilians in Hamas-controlled Gaza.
B'Tselem, an Israeli rights group, said the military's investigation was flawed.
"This does not answer the need for an independent inquiry outside the army that would look at the whole range of violations the army is incapable of looking at," said spokeswoman Sarit Michaeli, speaking on behalf of a group of Israeli human rights groups that have made this demand in the past. "It shows how important it is that Israel cooperate with the fact-finding mission of Goldstone that would look at violations."
Richard Goldstone, a former UN chief prosecutor for war crimes, recently was appointed to head a UN investigation into atrocities allegedly committed during Israel's three-week war against Gaza's Islamic Hamas rulers.
The investigation called by the UN's Human Rights Council was only supposed to look at Israeli conduct. But Goldstone did not accept the assignment until the mandate was changed to also examine Palestinian actions.
Israel has not said whether it would cooperate with the Goldstone investigation. But it has rejected council investigations in the past, calling them biased.
Among questions being raised is whether Israel used disproportionate force and failed to protect civilians.
In one case, Israeli artillery fire hit near a UN school where hundreds of Gazans had sought refuge, killing 42 people. Israeli said its troops were responding to fire from militants near the school.
In another instance, Gazans allege Israeli soldiers ordered 110 civilians into a warehouse, then shelled it the next day, killing 30. Israel denies the army targeted the warehouse.
Israel also has been criticized for using white phosphorus weapons, which can be legitimately used in war to create smoke screens or provide illumination. But rights activists have said its use over populated areas can indiscriminately burn civilians and constitute a war crime.
Israel says its army took great care to avoid harming civilians in Gaza, preceding some airstrikes with leaflets or phone calls warning civilians to flee -- a contention confirmed by Gaza residents.
Israel is preparing for potential legal action, barring the media from publishing pictures of officers' faces and their names for fear of investigations. It has promised legal and financial support for any officers facing trial, despite the difficulty of prosecuting Israelis.
In Jerusalem, the UN's top Mideast envoy, Robert Serry, toured several Palestinian areas where Israel had demolished or threatened to demolish homes. He expressed concern about a rising number of demolitions recently and urged Israel to halt the practice.
Serry visited the ruins of a home in the Jabel Mukaber neighborhood that had been demolished just hours earlier. The demolition left the Hdaidoun family of seven, including five children, homeless. He said the family's distress was "pretty shocking."
