UN Accuses Israel of 'War Crimes' against Hamas
ISRAELI-GAZA BORDER -- Hamas launched nearly 80 rockets at Israel on the same day the U.N. Human Rights Council decided to investigate the Jewish state for war crimes.
Israel came under fire for attacking the Wafa Hospital on Tuesday. The IDF released footage showing how Hamas used the hospital to shoot at Israel along with a phone conversation about how the hospital was empty.
"This use of human shields is extraordinarily cynical. It's grotesque. It's inhuman. But what is equally grotesque is that Israel was condemned in the Human Rights Council. It's a travesty of justice," Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said.
Meanwhile, Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal said his group is simply defending what he called Palestinian land.
Israel emphasizes the playing field is not level.
While Israel gives up the element of surprise and puts its own soldiers at risk by warning Palestinians civilians to leave the places it will attack, Hamas actually uses its own civilians as human shields.
Yet with firepower on its side and footage of devastation on the terrorists' side, Israel is often at a loss to present its case.
"I think people see the effectiveness of Israel's defense systems, of the Iron Dome, of their warning systems, shelter systems, and they see as a consequence of those measures that Israel has invested a huge amount of money, that there are very few casualties on the Israeli side," Richard Kemp, former commander of British forces in Aghanistan, told CBN News.
Kemp said Hamas, not Israel, is committing the war crimes.
"On the contrary, [on] the Hamas Palestinian side in Gaza, no money's been invested in putting civilians in shelters That's [the reality] and people see casualties, they see footage of casualties, they automatically assume therefore Israel must be committing a war crime," he explained.
Meanwhile, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry continued his shuttle diplomacy toward reaching a ceasefire.
"I can tell you that in the last 24 hours [I've] made some progress in moving toward that goal," Kerry said.
In the meantime, Operation Protective Edge entered its seventeenth day. IDF artillery batteries continued firing at Hamas targets in the Gaza Strip.
One of the main goals of the IDF remains finding and destroying the many infiltration tunnels dug by Hamas inside Israel
" If there is no border, if there is no boundary, if there is no limit to their access, then we are completely exposed and there is no line of defense," IDF Spokesman Lt. Col. Peter Lerner told CBN News. "It's an unbearable reality."
