No mention of Israel in UNHRC panel announcement

The UNHRC statement on the creation of the war crimes panel, interestingly, does not only not single out Israel, but fails to mention the country even once.

This likely means the commission’s mandate will also include looking at war crimes by Hamas and other groups in Gaza.

As Raphael Ahren reported in late July, following the announcement that the panel would be created:

For Israeli officials and diplomats the new fact-finding mission is a huge headache. “A lot of work lies ahead of us,” a senior diplomatic official said. “We have to try to defuse the explosives, or at least minimize the damage.”

The official took little comfort in the fact that the new fact-finding mission was tasked to “investigate all violations of international humanitarian law and international human rights law in the Occupied Palestinian Territory.” This means that not only Israel’s misdeeds will be scrutinized but also possible war crimes by Hamas and other Gaza-based terror groups. (For the EU, this was an important factor in its decision not to oppose the creation of the inquiry, European diplomats told The Times of Israel.)

He also reported:

Jerusalem has not yet announced that it will refuse to cooperate with the inquiry. The decision lies in the hands of the cabinet ministers and it seems unlikely that they will vote in favor of working with a panel everyone agrees is going to write an exceedingly unfair report. Even Justice Minister Tzipi Livni — the government’s most dovish member — is likely to oppose.