[News] Palestine - UN Rights council debates Gaza report

[Anti-Imperialist News]

Rights council debates Gaza report

http://english.aljazeera.net/news/europe/2009/10/2009101514315700273.html

Thursday, October 15, 2009
19:41 Mecca time, 16:41 GMT

The UN Human Rights Council in Geneva is again 
debating the Goldstone report on last winter's Gaza war.

Thursday's session comes at the request of the 
Palestinian Authority, which two weeks ago agreed 
to defer a vote on the UN-sanctioned report, but 
later backtracked after coming under heavy criticism.

At the opening of the meeting in Switzerland, 
Navi Pillay, the UN High Commissioner for Human 
Rights, said that all sides of the Middle East 
conflict were continuing to violate international 
law and voiced concern that transgressors are being left unpunished.

"A culture of impunity continues to prevail in 
the occupied territories and in Israel," she told 
the 47-member body, calling for "impartial, 
independent, prompt and effective investigations 
into reported violations of human rights and humanitarian law".

The debate comes a day after the UN Security 
Council also discussed the report, during which 
the Palestinian Authority demanded that Israel be punished for war crimes.

Palestinians are circulating a draft resolution 
for the human rights council debate, which among 
other things, calls on Ban Ki-moon, the UN 
secretary-general, to monitor whether Israel and 
Hamas conduct credible investigations into the alleged abuses during the war.

The proposal "strongly condemns all policies and 
measures taken by Israel, the occupying power, 
including those limiting access of Palestinians 
to their properties and holy sites" and calls on 
Israel to stop digging and excavation work around 
the Al Aqsa Mosque as well as other Christian and Islamic holy sites.

In her speech, Pillay cited concern about the 
restrictions on Palestinians wishing to enter Al 
Aqsa and expressed "dismay" about the Israeli 
blockade of Gaza that she said "severely 
undermines the rights and welfare of the population there."

Speaking on Thursday, Aharon Leshno Yaar, 
Israel's ambassador to the United Nations, said 
the adoption by the council of the proposed 
resolution would be a "reward for terror".

He said: "The resolution, as proposed, will be a 
reward for terror and will send a clear message to terrorists everywhere.

"They will clearly hear that this new form of 
warfare, as used by Hamas in Gaza, will offer 
immunity as countries will be prevented from waging effective responses.

"This strategy will be repeated in other places, 
against other countries fighting terror."

The Goldstone report recommended that its 
conclusions be sent on to the International 
Criminal Court (ICC) prosecutor in The Hague if 
Israel and Hamas do not hold their own credible 
investigations into allegations of war crimes within six months.

The report, which was written by a panel led by 
Richard Goldstone, a South African judge, accused 
Israel of war crimes and crimes against humanity.

It also accused Hamas, which has de facto control 
of Gaza, of war crime violations, but reserved 
most of its criticism for Israel.

On Wednesday, Ban urged "all of the parties to 
carry out credible domestic investigations into 
the conduct of the conflict without delay", Lynn 
Pascoe, the UN under secretary-general for 
political affairs, told the UN Security Council.

'Not justifiable'

Israeli officials have condemned the Goldstone 
report, saying their country had a right to 
defend itself from Hamas rocket attacks.

But Desmond Travers, a retired army colonel who 
worked with Goldstone on the report, dismissed that response.

"We examined that very carefully ... but we ruled 
that this was not a justifiable argument," 
Travers, currently with the Institute for 
International Criminal Investigations, told Al Jazeera.

"This report has taken the world community at 
large one lurch forward into the whole question of impunity," he said.

"We cannot lurch back, and I think the world at large doesn't wish to do that."

About 1,400 Palestinians – the majority of them 
civilians - and 13 Israelis were killed during 
Israel's three-week war on Gaza between last 
December and January, which had the stated aim of 
stopping rocket attacks by Palestinian fighters from the coastal territory.




Freedom Archives
522 Valencia Street
San Francisco, CA 94110

415 863-9977

www.Freedomarchives.org  
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://freedomarchives.org/pipermail/news_freedomarchives.org/attachments/20091015/e1949d75/attachment.htm>