Share this story!            

UN assembly votes for probes of Gaza war charges

* South African jurist says Israel responds to Palestinian attacks with disproportionate force

UNITED NATIONS: In a move that angered Israel, the UN General Assembly voted on Thursday to urge the Jewish state and Palestinians to investigate war crimes charges levelled in a controversial UN report on the Gaza war.

The Arab-drafted resolution is non-binding and unlikely to lead to inquiries by either Israel or the Palestinian Hamas movement that rules Gaza into their conduct during the December-January conflict. But the outcome was seen by Arab states as a public relations coup and a public discomfiture for Israel, which has reacted with outrage to the findings of the UN report, as have American Jewish groups. Following a two-day debate, 114 countries voted for the resolution with 18 opposed – including Israel and its ally the United States – and 44 abstaining. No country has veto power in the assembly. The resolution responded to a 575-page report on the Gaza war commissioned by the Geneva-based UN Human Rights Council, written by a panel led by South African jurist Richard Goldstone and published in September.

he report blasted both sides in the conflict, which killed over 1,300 Palestinians and 13 Israelis, but was harsher toward Israel, which refused to cooperate with Goldstone.

Respond: At a forum at Brandeis University in Waltham, Massachusetts, on Thursday, Goldstone criticised Israel for refusing to cooperate, adding that Israel responded to Palestinian attacks with disproportionate force. Muslim states backed the report during the assembly debate and called for an end to what they termed Israel’s impunity in the Middle East. Separately, Israel on Friday rejected the resolution and condemned the world body vote as “completely detached from realities”.

In a statement, the Israeli Foreign Ministry said Israel “maintains the right to self-defence”, and would “continue to act to protect the lives of its citizens from the threat of international terrorism”. “Israel rejects the resolution of the UN General Assembly, which is completely detached from realities on the ground that Israel must face,” a Foreign Ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor said. reuters

Home | National

Share this story!