Israeli MAG on Gaza investigations

Israel's Military Advocate General is quoted at length in an article in Haaretz about the legal fallout from last year's IDF operations in Gaza. Excerpt:

According to [Maj. Gen. Danny] Efroni, “It is clear to all of us that we will put a commander or soldier on trial for a black incident – not for a reasonable error in the midst of fighting like, for example, if you shoot to wound a terrorist and by mistake you hit a civilian. I don’t know how some of our investigations will end, but we will not hesitate. If needs be, we will file indictments. We will not put soldiers on trial only in order to satisfy the media, which is disturbed by the large number of civilians killed in the war. I am not investigating in order to satisfy anyone. I will not file indictments in order to arrange the statistics of B’Tselem,” he adds, referring to The Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories, which criticized the small number of indictments in the past relative to the number of investigations that were opened.

Efroni rejects the suggestion that the prosecutions’ work is being carried out in light of the possibility that the International Criminal Court in The Hague might file indictments against IDF officers following the Palestinians’ acceptance to membership in the organization. “If we do our work properly, I am not worried,” he says. “The ICC will not take action to replace the prosecution in a place where the legal system of the country is unbiased and does its work.”