The President of the United Nations General Assembly announced Wednesday that the Assembly plans next week to discuss the Goldstone Report on human rights violations carried out during Israel’s invasion of Gaza in January.56942
The President of the United Nations General Assembly announced Wednesday that the Assembly plans next week to discuss the Goldstone Report on human rights violations carried out during Israel’s invasion of Gaza in January.
The Report was commissioned by the United Nations Human Rights Council to examine allegations of human rights violations by both the Israeli military and the Palestinian resistance fighters in Gaza.
Although Israeli authorities refused to allow Richard Goldstone, the South African judge who headed the delegation, and his colleagues to enter Israel to examine human rights violations by Palestinian fighters, Israeli government officials claimed that the report was one-sided for allegedly not including human rights violations by Palestinian fighters.
Though the Report of the United Nations Fact Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict does, in fact, include reports on human rights violations by Palestinian fighters, the vast majority of violations documented in the report were carried out by Israeli invading forces in Gaza. During the January invasion, over 1400 Palestinians were killed by Israeli troops, 80% of whom were civilians. In the same time period, 4 Israelis were killed by Palestinian resistance fighters.
The UN General Assembly will consider the report next week, after requests from the 118-member Nonaligned Group of Nations. The report was endorsed by the UN Human Rights Council on October 16th, despite the objections of the US and Israeli delegates. It now passes to the General Assembly for discussion and potential endorsement.
UN head Ban ki-Moon said that he looks forward to the UN discussion of the report, adding, ‘I have called repeatedly on both the Israeli government and the Palestinians to carry out full, independent and credible investigations.’ The report calls for investigations by both governments, and recommends that if these investigations are not carried out within six months, that the case should be passed to the International Criminal Court.
Meanwhile, in the US Congress, 43 Congressmembers have signed on to H.RES.867, calling on the President and the Secretary of State to oppose unequivocally any endorsement or further consideration of the ‘Report of the United Nations Fact Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict’ in multilateral fora.
