Israeli commander admits Gaza crimes

An Israeli commander has confessed to crimes committed by the Israeli army during the 22-day onslaught on the Gaza Strip, a report says. Colonel Ilan Malka, who headed the Givati Brigade during the December 2008-January 2009 war against Gaza, has admitted to the killing of civilians during the Israeli incursion into the coastal sliver, the Arabic-language Al-Alam television network reported on Saturday.

Malka had earlier told Israeli investigators that he did not know there were civilians in a building that came under attack on January 5, 2009 after he ordered the strike. Eyewitnesses, however, say Israeli military razed the building after the attack in order to obliterate traces of their crimes. The deadly attack, which was denounced by the United Nations as "one of the gravest" of the offensives of the war, claimed the lives of 22 members of the Samuni family, ten of whom were minors. Twenty-nine members of the family, who lived in Gaza City's Zaitun neighborhood, were killed, and 49 others were injured in the war.