A/HRC/10/20 page 6 protect any member of the Israel Defense Forces from being accused, and, if accused, to prevent indictment and prosecution.1 Such sentiments seem inconsistent with any expectation of serious official cooperation with a proposed investigation. It may be necessary, given this prospect, to place greater reliance on respected non-governmental organizations compiling evidence and submitting reports and on formal interviews with qualified observers and witnesses. III. INHERENT ILLEGALITY: LEGALLY MANDATORY DISTINCTION BETWEEN CIVILIAN AND MILITARY TARGETS IMPOSSIBLE IN LARGE-SCALE SUSTAINED ATTACKS ON GAZA AS COMMENCED BY ISRAEL ON 27 DECEMBER 2008 7. It is the view of the Special Rapporteur that the most important legal issue raised by an investigation of the recent military operations concerns the basic Israeli claim to use modern weaponry on a large scale against an occupied population living under the confined conditions that existed in Gaza. This involves trying to establish whether, under the conditions that existed in Gaza, it is possible with sufficient consistency to distinguish between military targets and the surrounding civilian population. If it is not possible to do so, then launching the attacks is inherently unlawful, and would seem to constitute a war crime of the greatest magnitude under international law. On the basis of the preliminary evidence available, there is reason to reach this conclusion. 8. Considering that the attacks were directed at densely populated areas, it was to some extent inevitable and certainly foreseeable that hospitals, religious and educational sites and United Nations facilities would be hit by Israeli military ordnance, and that extensive civilian casualties would result. As all borders were sealed, civilians could not escape from the orbit of harm. For authoritative and more specific conclusions on these points, it will be necessary to mount an investigation based on knowledge of Israeli weaponry, tactics and doctrine to assess the degree to which, in concrete cases, it would have been possible, given the battlefield conditions, to avoid non-military targets and to spare Palestinian civilians to a greater extent. Even without this investigation, on the basis of available reports and statistics, it is possible to draw the important preliminary conclusion that, given the number of Palestinian civilian casualties and degree of devastation of non-military targets in Gaza, the Israelis either refrained from drawing the distinction required by customary and treaty international law or were unable to do so under the prevailing combat conditions, making the attacks impossible to reconcile with international law. On the basis of existing information, the principal results of the military operation were as follows: (a) A total of 1,434 Palestinians were killed, of whom 235 were combatants. Some 960 civilians reportedly lost their lives, including 288 children and 121 women; 239 police 1 “The soldiers and commanders who were sent on mission in Gaza must know that they are safe from various tribunals and that the State of Israel will assist them on this issue and defend them.” Los Angeles Times, 26 January 2009.