U.N. rights envoy for territories urges U.N. peace role

GENEVA (Reuters) - The United Nations should "open lines of communication" between Israel, Hamas and the Palestinian Authority and bring all parties to the negotiating table, the U.N. human rights investigator for the Palestinian territories said on Thursday.

John Dugard, a South African jurist who has served in the independent U.N. post since 2001, condemned Wednesday's violence in the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip, where 17 Palestinians and three Israeli soldiers were killed.

Islamist Hamas continues to say it will not formally recognize Israel and its 1988 founding charter calls for the destruction of the Jewish state.

Dugard said Israel's unwillingness to talk to Hamas was understandable but he saw "no reason why the United Nations, acting through the Security Council or the secretary-general, should not intervene and assert its role as mediator."

"This is a role that the United Nations has traditionally played, even where one of the parties has been labeled as terrorist," Dugard said in a statement issued in Geneva.

"It is the responsibility of the United Nations, as the ultimate guardian of human rights and international peace, to open lines of communication between Israel, Hamas, and the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah, and to bring them to the negotiating table," he said.

"How long is this madness to continue without serious international intervention? It has become clear...that only direct negotiations or talks between the real parties involved - Israel and Hamas - can stop the killings," Dugard added.

Dugard reports to the Geneva-based U.N. Human Rights Council, which is the world body's top human rights forum.

Both Israel and the United States say Hamas is a terrorist group and U.S. policy is to isolate the Islamist faction.

Washington sees Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas as its partner in U.S.-sponsored peace talks with the Israelis.

Dugard said bringing all sides together would also help advance Palestinian national unity -- calling it "another area which the United Nations has to date failed to address".

The world body had a duty to protect the lives of both Palestinians and Israelis, he said.

(Reporting by Stephanie Nebehay; Editing by Jon Boyle)