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"The cease-fire in Gaza is less than a week old.\nYet there is already talk of war crimes investigations of actions on both sides.\nSee also: Goodbye to Gaza: A Place of Hope Despite the Bombs\nDuring the nearly monthlong conflict, Israeli bombs killed almost 2,000 Palestinians \u2014 many of them civilians \u2014 while also obliterating much of Gaza's civilian infrastructure. \nMeanwhile, Hamas militants fired rockets indiscriminately at Israeli cities. And Israel argues that the militants operated in densely populated areas, putting Palestinian civilians in the line of fire.\nLast week, the United Nations' senior human rights official said Israel should be held accountable for possible war crimes in Gaza. \"None of this appears to me to be accidental,\" Navi Pillay, the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, said of Israel's bombardment of schools and shelters in Gaza. She also criticized Hamas for allegedly launching rockets from areas packed with civilians. \nPalestinian officials have said they want the International Criminal Court (ICC) to investigate war crimes even if it means that Palestinian militants are also scrutinized. \nOfficials from the United Nations and human rights groups say actions by both Israel and Hamas could be prosecuted as war crimes, though there have been few successful prosecutions since the ICC was founded in 2002. \nAnd proving that either side violated the laws of war is a difficult task.\nThe challenges inherent in war crimes prosecutions can be divided into three categories: gathering physical evidence, establishing intent and getting past political pressure.\nThe evidence\nHuman rights groups in Gaza have interviewed victims and have tried to gather physical evidence of war crimes since the conflict began, according to Deborah Hyams, a researcher with Amnesty International who focuses on the region. \n\nA Palestinian man cleans up the room of his sister's house as bullet casings are found left by Israeli soldiers on the floor, in the southern Gaza Strip on Aug. 5.Image: Khalil Hamra/Associated PressBut collecting evidence in the middle of a war zone is as difficult as it sounds.\n\"Bystanders who are curious can pick up fragments of an ordinance or whatever left over from the scene, not even thinking anything about its evidentiary value,\" George Bisharat, a Middle East law expert and professor at the University of California, Hastings, told Mashable. Or, as Human Rights Watch researcher Bill Van Esveld pointed out, the crime scene may simply have been \"blown up.\"\nThe intent\nSecondly, establishing intent is tricky. \n\"Everything depends on circumstances,\" Bisharat said. \u201CPeople are not criminally culpable for what are simply mistakes.\" \nA war crime is defined as any act committed during a conflict that violates the internationally agreed-upon rules of war, which are designed to limit the effects of battle and protect civilians. \nThose rules ban many actions, including military tactics and weapons that could cause \"too much suffering or unnecessary losses to the civilian population,\" and they prohibit direct attacks on civilians. \nBut the definitions of many specific crimes allow for interpretation. \nKilling many civilians in pursuit of one key enemy might constitute the use of \"disproportionate force,\" which is a violation of international law. But those civilians might also be considered unfortunate collateral damage in an effort to eliminate a high-value target. \n\u201CIn order to conclude that an attack caused disproportionate civilian damages, you can\u2019t just count the civilians and the militants,\" Jens Ohlin, an international law professor at Cornell University, told Mashable. \u201CIt\u2019s that valuing of the military target that becomes very difficult to do.\u201D\nThe politics\nFinally, countries with strong international allies are less likely to be prosecuted. (Only two people have been convicted of war crimes by the ICC since it was founded in 2002, both from the Democratic Republic of Congo.) Just because a rule is considered international law does not mean it is easy to enforce.\n\nThomas Lubanga, the first person to be convicted of war crimes by the ICC, awaits his appeal hearing in the courtroom of the ICC in The Hague, Netherlands on May 19.Image: Jiri Buller/Associated PressWhen the U.N. sent a fact-finding mission to Gaza after the 2009 conflict between Israel and Hamas, the resulting Goldstone report concluded that there was evidence to show both sides had committed war crimes, and that the Israeli military had a policy of killing civilians, though that finding was later retracted.\nYet nothing came of the report's findings, in part, human rights advocates say, because of American resistance.\nThe United States has long argued that pursuing war crimes investigations against Israel will harm the fragile peace process. Neither America, Israel nor the Palestinians are members of the ICC. \n\nIsraeli reserve soldiers pray after returning to Israel from the Gaza Strip  on Aug. 4.Image: Tsafrir Abayov/Associated PressDespite the court's thin record of prosecutions, human rights advocates believe that the ICC serves a purpose and that even a war crimes trial that ended without convictions could have a positive impact. Just the notion that someone could be convicted might make soldiers and militaries more carefully consider their actions in times of war.\n\u201COnce the ICC gets involved, everyone who has possibly committed a war crime is afraid of prosecution,\" Hyams said. \nHave something to add to this story? Share it in the comments."^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://mashable.com/2014/08/07/gaza-war-crimes-israel-hamas/>