Gaza tops agenda at UN rights body
Reageer (0)26-9-2010
GENEVA (Ma'an) -- The United Nations' main human rights body will consider two resolutions this week demanding changes to Israeli policy toward the Gaza Strip, officials in Geneva say.
The Palestinian Authority plans to put forward a resolution condemning Israel over allegations of war crimes and crimes against humanity during the 2008-9 assault on the Gaza Strip, a senior PA official said Sunday.
But the PA's resolution is likely to disappoint Palestinian and Israeli human rights advocates who have condemned the international community's ongoing failure to prosecute the alleged violations of international law.
A coalition of rights groups is calling on the UN body to ensure accountability by referring the allegations to the ICC immediately, following the UN's rejection of the domestic inquiries led by Israeli and Hamas authorities.
As recommended by South African jurist Richard Goldstone's UN fact-finding mission, "it is imperative that immediate urgent recourse be had to mechanisms of international criminal justice," the groups including Badil and the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights said.
"Those suspected of committing the most serious crimes of the international community cannot continue to be granted impunity. Victims' rights cannot continue to be denied," the statement, issued Thursday by seven Palestinian and Israeli rights groups, said.
The joint appeal, released just ahead of the council's last days in session, preceded calls by Amnesty International, and others, urgently seeking a determination by the Pre-Trial Chamber on whether the ICC prosecutor has jurisdiction over the Gaza conflict.
The PA says going to the ICC is easier said than done. "Anyone can talk about it, but there's a process that needs to take place," Ibrahim Khraishi, the PA envoy in Geneva, said. "We'd like to go tomorrow to the ICC."
Nevertheless, Khraishi says the PA will seek a strongly worded resolution calling Israel to account. "The Israelis have failed to undertake serious, credible investigations into these crimes against our people. This is the main issue," he said in a phone interview from Geneva.
Sources in Geneva say Khraishi may delay the vote until Friday, when the vote would receive less attention due to the weekend and end of session, allowing diplomats to pass a mild resolution without the concern of significant media coverage.
Khraishi would not discuss the timeframe. "We don't know yet. We'll have to wait and see," he said.
The PA sparked domestic outrage in October 2009 when its envoy to Geneva deferred debate on the report following pressure from Israel and the US, which opposed the report as biased.
President Mahmoud Abbas, at the time facing calls to resign, took responsibility for the move that the PA insisted was a mistake.
But any new delay at the council would be Hamas' fault, Khraishi said Sunday.
The official added: "On the Palestinian side, there is also a lack of cooperation. Hamas hasn't fulfilled expectations. There's more work to be done, so any delay on the Palestinian side is due to Hamas' lack of cooperation."
The PA, meanwhile, has met expectations, he said. "From our side, we are working within the international parameters to look into the violations, and we are willing to take responsibility in the event violations are found. The job was done in a very professional manner."
Turkey, meanwhile, will take a strong stance against Israel's deadly 31 May navy raid on a Gaza-bound aid flotilla.
A copy of the draft resolution, obtained by Ma'an, that Turkey will present to the council regrets Israel's "non-cooperation" in an inquiry whose conclusions days earlier found that Israel broke international law when it raided the Freedom Flotilla.
The draft fully endorses the investigation, requests that the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights submit a follow-up report on the status of the rights body's conclusions, and recommends action by the UN General Assembly in its next session.
Israel's Foreign Ministry issued a stern rebuke to the initial findings, saying that "Israel is a democratic and law abiding country that carefully observes international law and, when need be, knows how to investigate itself.
"That is how Israel has always acted, and that is the way in which investigations were conducted following Operation Cast Lead, launched to protect the inhabitants of southern Israel from rockets and terror attacks carried out by Hamas from Gaza."
The ministry's statement said the Israeli investigation system, "which conforms to all international standards, is being examined by the Turkel Committee, an independent panel with international observers. This committee is still carrying out its work."
It added: "In view of all this, as well as of the biased, politicized and extremist approach of the same Human Rights Council that had initiated the skewed Goldstone Report, Israel sees no reason to cooperate with this commission."
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