A/HRC/12/48 page 100 the Gaza police. The Mission also reviewed allegations about the Gaza internal security forces made by the Israeli Government and also mentioned in a report (in Hebrew) by the Orient Research Group Ltd., an Israeli organization commissioned by the then Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert to produce this report.253 395. The attacks investigated by the Mission were all directed against facilities used by the police force called shurta (police) in official documents of the Gaza authorities and referred to as “civil police” in many English reports. 396. The Arafat City police headquarters and three of the five police stations visited were attacked during the first minutes of the Israeli military operations in Gaza, between 11.20 and 11.35 a.m. on 27 December 2009. According to witnesses, the attacks were carried out primarily with bombs and missiles launched from fighter jets. Missiles launched by naval forces might also have been used. 397. According to the information received by the Mission from TAWTHEQ, 29 other police stations were targeted by the Israeli armed forces in addition to the five police stations visited by the Mission. Twenty-four were targeted on 27 December 2008 (mostly during the first minutes of the attack), the first day of the military operations, nine on the following day and one on 14 January 2009. 1. Information regarding the attacks on the police headquarters and police stations visited by the Mission 398. Arafat City police headquarters occupy a large compound in central Gaza. They are used by the civil police (shurta), one of the police forces operating in Gaza, as office space and for training courses. The Mission visited three sites in the compound in which missiles or bombs had struck. In one large yard, three missiles struck the participants of a police training course. Fortyeight policemen were killed on the spot, five more were wounded, two of whom subsequently succumbed to their injuries. 399. While it appears that all the policemen killed in this location were taking part in a training course, there is conflicting information on the details. Most reports by NGOs are to the effect that these were police “cadets” in the midst of a graduation ceremony. The Gaza police spokesperson, however, told the Mission that they were serving policemen, who had been taking a three-week course and who were, at the time of the strike, doing “morning sport exercise”.254 The contents of the training course reportedly were “protocol”, i.e. how to deal with See Lt. Col. (res.) Jonathan Dahoah-Halevi, “Fatal casualties of the Palestinian security forces – Myth vs. Reality” (Orient Research Group Ltd., 2009). Its author is a former adviser to the Policy Planning Division of the Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs and current researcher at the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs and co-founder of the Orient Research Group Ltd. In a letter to the Mission, the author stated that the report had been commissioned “to identify the police officers killed and the extent of their affiliation with Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad and other terrorist organizations.” As to the sources and methodology employed, he explained that he had examined materials in the public domain, including official lists of policemen who were killed published by the Palestinian Police and the Gaza authorities, NGO reports and material published by Palestinian armed groups. “The operation in Gaza…” relies on this report, referring to it as “a recent study” (para. 247). 253 254 Mission phone interview with Mr. Shahwan, Gaza police spokesperson, 12 July 2009.