There is a school of thought that maintains that because the laws of war evolved gradually as repeatedly warring entities realized they could arrive at a mutually better equilibrium (a Pareto improvement, if you like) by limiting certain kinds of needless destruction - of human life, of property, of agriculture, etc - that therefore such laws are
only meaningful in the context of reciprocity. The reasoning goes that if the other party is not subject to any self-restraint, then it makes no sense for 'us' to be restrained; we advantage our enemy with no benefit to ourselves.
This forms one pillar of the Israeli defense against the accusations laid out in the Goldstone Report (and similar charges in the past).
The second pillar of this defense maps the responsibilities of a warring nation to the intentions of its military activity rather than to the results. In other words, if a fighting force can show that it took some measures to reduce the unnecessary loss of life, or can show that a bomb killing a score of civilians might reasonably have been aimed at a single combatant among them, then that force has fulfilled its responsibility - regardless of the ultimate human toll of those slightly-mitigated actions. It is clear that in modern urban warfare, this principle appears increasingly as a shadow in some fun-house mirror, a bizarrely distorted and inhuman perspective; in modern warfare, a force following this logic will inevitably kill far more civilians than combatants. This inspires a dichotomy of reactions. On the one hand, doves will reply that a moral state must refrain or seriously hesitate before engaging in combat in dense urban areas, because civilian deaths are so likely to result. On the other hand, hawks have argued that simply conceding urban warfare is not a viable option, and that the reluctance to return fire in urban areas will attract enemies to those areas and encourage the use of human shields; instead, we must simply learn to swallow civilian casualties as a result of the new kind of warfare. There is sound logic in both of these thoughts, and where we fall must largely be a function of our attitudes towards human nature, warfare, and the value of human life.
War crimes? I don't know. It is a complicated question, but I am reasonably certain about the following:
1) At a purely human level, the cost of these operations in terms of Palestinian life and suffering is breathtaking - and utterly incomparable to any losses on the Israeli side.
2) Whatever the legal outcome of such a conflict may be, this human cost will inevitably take a political toll - and possibly worse. If Israel chooses to sow the wind, it will reap the whirlwind.
3) As a matter of utility, this conflict has done more to delay the emergence of a Palestinian peace constituency and to harm the long-term prospects for Israel's security than to help it.
Finally, for those interested in reading a detailed and gripping overview of the Gaza conflict, there's a good piece in the New Yorker: (
Gaza, Gilad Shalit, Hamas, and Israel : The New Yorker). It begins with the capture of Gilad Shalit and takes you through the present day.