IDF soldiers (file)
IDF soldiers (file)IDF Spokesperson Unit

The IDF Military Advocate General, Maj. Gen. Dani Efroni, has decided to launch criminal investigations on six anomalous cases that occurred during Operation Protective Edge against Hamas in Gaza last summer.

The investigations including a strike on an UNRWA school in which 20 people were killed - a large number of them terrorists who were cynically using the UN building - as well as three cases of arrested Palestinian Arabs allegedly being struck, and two claims of looting.

The IDF notes that the six cases are out of 65 incidents that were passed to the Military Advocate General to check if there were grounds for investigation. The IDF says it continues to receive complaints of alleged unusual incidents from the war.

Most of the complaints, the IDF notes, are submitted in the name of Arab residents of Gaza, or by Israeli, Palestinian Arab or international NGOs, and all of them are thoroughly investigated.

The criminal investigations are managed by a special investigation unit established by the investigative military police to examine incidents from the war.

"Regarding incidents about which written petitions were received, a response was sent to the organization or individual that contacted (us)," the IDF explained.

It was found during the operation that Gaza terrorists used UNRWA facilities to attack Israel, storing rockets in several schools and reportedly booby-trapping another clinic, which exploded and killed three IDF soldiers. Entrances to terror tunnels were reportedly found inside the building.

In the operation, 67 IDF soldiers and five Israeli citizens were killed, while in Gaza 2,203 Arab residents were killed.

A study revealed that 49% of the Arabs killed in Gaza were terrorists, meaning the IDF achieved a 1:1 ratio of combatants to civilians nearly unprecedented in urban warfare, even despite the fact that Hamas embedded its terrorist infrastructure in civilian centers.