Israel to cooperate with UN chief’s Gaza probe

Israel will cooperate with a UN committee appointed by UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon to investigate Israeli attacks on UN shelters during the Gaza war as well as the discovery of Hamas weapons at UN sites, Channel 2 reported Thursday night.

The decision came in contrast to Israel’s decision to boycott the official UN inquiry into the summer Gaza conflict, and its rejection of entry requests by that committee’s members.

According to the report, sources in the Foreign Ministry said they elected to work with Ban’s probe as they believed it would be a balanced one, as opposed to the general inquiry set up by the UN Human Rights Council which officials have described as biased and one-sided.

Ban announced plans to set up the probe during his visit to Gaza last month after describing the three Israeli shellings of UN-run schools as a “moral outrage.”

Israel maintained that Palestinian Hamas terrorists were using the schools to store weapons but denied that it had deliberately targeted the schools, which were being used as shelters by Palestinians during the 50-day war.

The five-member panel, led by retired Dutch general Patrick Cammaert, will “review and investigate a number of specific incidents in which death or injuries occurred at, and/or damage was done to United Nations premises,” said UN spokesman Farhan Haq.

UN officials have said that Hamas rockets were found in vacant shelters. They condemned those responsible for putting civilians at risk.

The other members of the panel include Maria Vicien-Milburn of Argentina, American Lee O’Brien, Canadian Pierre Lemelin and K.C. Reddy of India.

The UN spokesman emphasized that Ban “expects that the board will enjoy the full cooperation of all parties concerned.”

The decision not to cooperate with the other UN probe, that of the Human Rights Council, was approved by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Foreign Minister Avigdor Liberman.

Earlier this month it led to three members of the investigative team being stranded in Amman after Israel refused to allow them entrance to the country.

The Foreign Ministry said the decision came about because of the UN Human Rights Council’s “obsessive hostility” toward Israel and “one-sided mandate.” It also cited anti-Israel statements made by inquiry head William Schabas as a factor in the move.

“While Hamas fired thousands of rockets toward Israel, the UN Human Rights Council decided it would determine in advance Israel’s ‘guilt’ and set up an investigative committee to serve as a rubber stamp to its known positions,” a ministry statement said.

“Since the Schabas commission is not an inquiry but a commission that gives its conclusions in advance, Israel will not cooperate with the UN Commission on Human Rights over the last conflict with Hamas,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Emmanuel Nahshon said in a statement.

The head of the UN commission, Canadian law professor Schabas, came under fire with his appointment to the panel for what critics termed his antipathy to Israel after having called for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to stand trial at the ICC for war crimes.

In September, Schabas maintained he would not quit, despite Israeli pressure to do so.

“I do not hate Israel and do not want to engage in a debate regarding my previous positions on Israel,” Schabas told Saudi-owned daily A-Sharq Al-Awsat in an interview. “I have had positions in the past concerning Palestine and Israel and they have nothing to do with my mission now. I will put my opinions aside during the investigation and they will have no bearing on it.”

Marissa Newman contributed to this report.