Eshkol Regional Council head Haim Yalin has sent a letter to residents of the Gaza border communities, assuring them that he was defending and would continue to defend Israel Defense Forces soldiers against a U.N. war crimes probe. Yalin traveled to Geneva on Tuesday as part of a delegation of seven Israelis testifying before the Schabas commission -- the United Nations Human Rights Council committee set up to investigate possible war crimes during Operation Protective Edge. The delegation was the initiative of Jewish organizations, rather than the State of Israel, which refused to cooperate because of suspected anti-Israel bias in the committee. The probe is headed by Canadian Professor William Schabas, who is known for his numerous anti-Israel comments. "I traveled with a delegation to testify before a committee in Geneva to defend IDF soldiers, to defend the best of our young men, who were absolutely not taught to kill. They were taught to love their fellow man and to love the land," Yalin wrote. "The soldiers fought in the operation to protect their parents, their siblings, their friends and their nation. They did not go into the Gaza Strip to kill, but rather to neutralize the terror tunnels [from Gaza] that reached into Israeli territory." Although Israel officially refused cooperation with the commission, Yalin said he had been approached "by the World Jewish Congress and the International Association of Jewish Lawyers and Jurists to back up the testimony given by residents [of southern Israel] and officials about the conflict."
