A/HRC/12/48 page 107 activists of Hamas or other terrorist organizations”,279 appears to be an overstatement that has led to prejudicial presumptions against the nature of the police force that may not be justified. 420. In his meeting with the Mission, the Director of Police was very open in acknowledging that many of his men were Hamas supporters, but insisted at the same time there are others who supported other Palestinian factions.280 Police station commanders interviewed by the Mission stated that most of their men (70 per cent according to the estimates of one station commander, 95 per cent in another station) had joined the police after June 2007.281 The Mission understands that most, if not all, of the post-June 2007 recruits into the civil police, will have been recruited from the Executive Force, which was strongly loyal to Hamas. 421. The Mission also notes, however, that in senior positions in the police, the representation of non-Hamas men appears to have been broader. The Director of Police killed on 27 December 2008, Mr. Tawfiq Jabr, was generally known as not being affiliated with Hamas. Several of the station commanders interviewed by the Mission were also not Hamas affiliates but men who had joined the Palestinian Authority’s police after the Oslo Accords allowed the Palestinians to constitute their own law-enforcement agencies. They had thus served in the Palestinian police in Gaza for more than 10 years before Hamas seized control of it in June 2007. 422. The Mission further notes that the study conducted by the Orient Research Group Ltd. names policemen killed during the attack, whom it identifies as members of Hamas, al-Qassam Brigades, other armed Palestinian groups or “terror operatives” whose affiliation is not known. In 78 out of 178 cases the policemen are alleged to be members of al-Qassam Brigades on the sole basis that they were allegedly Hamas members. 423. Furthermore, it appears from the response to the Mission from the Orient Research Group Ltd. describing its methodology that its information on police members’ alleged affiliation with armed groups was based to a large extent on the websites of the armed groups. In this respect, the Mission is mindful of a recent report by a Palestinian human rights NGO drawing attention to the “issue of the ‘adoption’ of killed persons by resistance groups; i.e. declaration by a political or armed group that the person killed was one of their members. Often, when persons, including children, are killed by actions of the Israeli armed forces , political and/or armed groups ‘adopt’ them as ‘martyrs’ placing their photographs on their websites and commending their contribution to resisting occupation. This does not mean that those persons killed were involved in resistance activities in any way. The families accept this ‘adoption’ of deceased family members for various reasons including the willingness of resistance groups to provide financial support to the families and pay for funeral costs of the persons killed.” As the NGO concludes, “these cases require in-depth investigation on a case-by-case basis in order to determine every person’s status according to his actual affiliation”.282 279 “The operation in Gaza…”, para. 247. 280 Mission meeting with Director of Police, 4 June 2009. 281 Mission interviews with Gaza City police station commanders, 9 June 2009. 282 Al Mezan Center for Human Rights, “Cast lead offensive in numbers”, p. 5.