Israeli Politician Accused of War Crimes

As Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert faces corruption charges, one of his deputies and a leading candidate as his successor has been accused of committing war crimes, reports The Independent: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/olmert-indicted-as-deputy-is-accused-of-war-crimes-922496.html. Earlier this year, The Independent reported that Shaul Mofaz , who was army chief of staff in 2001, called for 70 Palestinians a day to be killed.
Professor David Kretzmer, one of Israel’s prominent law professors and a great friend of the Irish Centre for Human Rights, has written to justice officials calling for the reports to be investigated. According to Professor Kretzmer, these accounts raise ‘a grave suspicion’ that Mofaz ‘committed serious offences, some of which at least, fall into the category of war crimes’. He is quoted in The Independent saying that an order to kill people ‘by quota’ is ‘not consistent with the norms of humanitarian law’, and that the test of proportionality is especially relevant in cases of military occupation, in which even the actions of armed groups do not ‘relieve the Army of its obligations to residents of the territory’.