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: JURIST - The Paper Chase

UN rights investigators conclude Gaza hearings

By Bernard Hibbitts (editor) and University of Pittsburgh School of Law students.

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[JURIST] Investigators from the UN Human Rights Council on Tuesday concluded public hearings into alleged violations of international human rights law during December and January's fighting between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza strip. The head of the four person UN Fact Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict, former South African Constitutional Court judge Richard Goldstone, said that the goal of the hearings "was to show the human side of the suffering; to give a voice to the victims so that they are not lost among statistics." The mission heard from Israeli and Palestinian victims, military experts, and lawyers over four days of hearings in Gaza and Geneva. The mission plans to seek further information from the Israeli government, the Palestinian Authority, and Hamas prior to reporting their findings to the Human Rights Council in September. The mission began its field operations in Gaza in June, entering Gaza through Egypt's Rafah crossing after Israel announced that it would not cooperate with the investigation because it doubted the mission's objectivity. Goldstone was appointed to head the investigation in April, amongst strong criticism from Israel. The impetus for the probe was a February report, authored by UN Special Rapporteur Richard Falk, which criticized Israel for failing to take adequate precautions to distinguish between civilians and combatants in their offensives in the region. Both Israel and the US criticized the report, calling the rapporteur's views "anything but fair." In April, an internal Israeli military investigation found that war crimes had not been committed in the offensive despite individual reports by Israeli soldiers. Israel has already disputed a previous report to the UNHRC that accused it of human rights violations.

Full post as published by JURIST - The Paper Chase on July 08, 2009 (boomark / email).