פורום ארץ הצבי

After the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1987, which left South Lebanon devastated, Colonel Travers
volunteered to travel to the region to take up the position of Military Observer. He and his family moved to
Northern Israel, where they lived for two years and which he found to be a wonderful experience. His time
there made him very inquisitive about the motivation behind violent attacks - why and how they happen - and
this remained a fascination of his throughout his time investigating and observing the situation in Lebanon. It
was by no means an uneventful posting and he was hijacked and captured by members of a Palestinian-
Lebanese national movement as well as by Israeli forces.

HC - How important do you think it was for a military expert to be appointed to the panel investigating the
assault on Gaza, bearing in mind that your military background gives you a greater understanding of
weapons such as white phosphorus bombs, flechette shells, Dense Inert Metal Explosives (DIME) and so on?
DT - There was also an overriding need to produce a kind of resume of the tactical operations that took place
on 27th December. Why did such events take place? What was the rationale for occupying houses and for
shooting people who came near them? What was the rationale for attacks from the North, the South, the East
and the West? I had to produce a whole exposition on this and also to identify the [Israeli] units that had come
into Gaza, which I did. So in reality, before I actually put my boot on the ground I spent six weeks researching
Gaza and the conflict, and the first job I had to do when we four met with our lawyers was that I had to give an
exposition of what I believed took place and I did.

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