- UPDATE 3-Obama to address new economic ideas next Wednesday
- Factbox: Details of cargo plane which crashed in Dubai
- Curfew declared after 7.1 quake hits New Zealand | Video
- Steve Jobs: iTunes 10 Icon Does Not 'Suck'
- Sofia Coppola takes insider's look at Hollywood A-lister | Video
- God did not create the universe, says Hawking
- Analysis: Democrats face grim election prospects
- God did not create the universe, says Hawking
- Taxpayers likely to face initial loss on GM IPO: sources
- German party mistakenly hands out porn pens to kids
NYSE and AMEX quotes delayed by at least 20 minutes. NASDAQ delayed by at least 15 minutes. For a complete list of exchanges and delays, please click here.
U.N. rights body tells Israel to end Gaza blockade
Palestinian children fly kites on the beach of Beit Lahiya in the northern Gaza Strip during a summer camp organised by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) July 29, 2010.
Credit: Reuters/Mohammed Salem
GENEVA |
GENEVA (Reuters) - Israel must lift its military blockade of the Gaza Strip and invite an independent, fact-finding mission to investigate its raid on a Gaza-bound aid flotilla, a United Nations rights body said on Friday.
The U.N. Human Rights Committee also told Israel to ensure that Palestinians in the occupied territories can enjoy the fundamental civil and political freedoms that Israel had pledged to uphold in the main international human rights treaty.
Israel maintains that the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights does not apply to the occupied West Bank and Gaza, although it says that the treaty does apply to Jewish settlers there, committee member Christine Chanet said.
There are no Israeli settlers in Gaza itself.
"In Israel's written responses to the committee, one could see a total discrimination in the sense that settlers benefited from the pact," she told a news briefing.
"We have maintained our position on the applicability of the covenant. We are stronger because the International Court of Justice has said we were right on this position," she added, referring to the World Court's 2004 advisory opinion.
Chanet, a former French judge and international human rights expert, said: "It is very difficult to have a real dialogue (with Israel)."
AID FLOTILLA
The committee's non-binding recommendations add to pressure on Israel to explain what happened in its attack on May 31 on an aid flotilla in which nine Turkish pro-Palestinian activists were killed, damaging relations between Israel and Turkey.
Israel admitted errors in planning the raid but justified the use of lethal force saying its marines came under attack from activists wielding knives and clubs. Activists deny this.
There was no immediate reaction from Israel on the eve of the Jewish Sabbath but the government has repeatedly condemned the U.N. human rights bodies in Geneva as biased.
The recommendations are the latest in a series of reports and sessions in which Israel has been on the defensive at the United Nations over its policies in Gaza and the West Bank.
On July 23, another U.N. rights forum, the Human Rights Council, appointed a team of international experts to investigate the raid on the flotilla and called on all parties to cooperate.
The committee is a body of 18 independent experts, mainly prominent in international and human rights law, that monitors the implementation of the Covenant by the 166 countries including Israel that have signed up to it.
The recommendations on Israel's regular report to the committee on its compliance included calls for investigations into human rights abuses including killings in Israel's military offensive in Gaza between December 27, 2008, and January 18, 2009.
Israel should also refrain from holding criminal proceedings against children in military courts, the committee said.
"There are hundreds of children (being held)," Chanet said.
The committee also told Israel to end extra-judicial executions of terrorist suspects, make torture illegal, end construction of settlements in the occupied territories, stop building a wall cutting off some of the territories from other regions, and stop destroying homes as a collective punishment.
It asked Israel to say in its next report due by July 2013 what action it had taken on these and other recommendations.
(Reporting by Jonathan Lynn and Stephanie Nebehay; Editing by Elizabeth Fullerton)
Ask any of the 13 Jew senators and they’ll tell you the ONU resolutions are not something you should pay attention to.
The UNHRC is one of the most biased parts of the UN and does nothing other than add to the growing irrelevance and impotence of the body as a whole. What a bunch of clowns!
Is there ever any inspiring and uplifting news about Israel? Is there ever any virtuous or respectable action taking involving Israel, or for that matter in the Middle East since the creation of Israel? These international Organizations are jokes, just like any social adjudicating institutions created by disingenuous and tyrant nations to advance and justify their oppressive agendas and measures. It is all a big joke. Rich criminals protected by law while poor ones are match to confinements! SAD, SAD WORLD!
@Pedro07:
Your focus on the “13 Jew senators” says more about you than it does about anything else. That this is not binding is simple fact, no matter what the religion of the particular senator you choose to ask is, or anyone else’s for that matter.
Double standard, again. Israel with the generous help of its powerful lobby can cherry pick at will and their pleasure which international rules apply to Israel and which ones they can completely just ignore.
yo people can talk so much about an issue that you have little knowledge on. how many of you have been to Israel? tell me have you ever had to hid your kids i fear of a war that is happening outside you door. Or maybe you have had you son killed by an extremist bomber that not only kills himself and you son but half of the neighborhood pulse his gods people. Wake Up!! it very easy to Jude from the outside, but how about we look at it form everybody side and not just the side that you like. Both sides are wrong and right at the same times. Peace is about making sure that your point is the right one, its about coming to an understanding that although were we have different views we should stile put that aside and focus on what really matters peace between our people.
Israel should adhere to international laws, expectations, and decorum. Wow! What a concept, huh?
Israel does whatever they want. They only care about laws when they are in their favour and ignore anything that is not. If they think pissing off every single neighbor is good policy, go for it. Just don’t come crying when your neighbors have had enough.
All military strong nation have rights to defend themselves by any means, for example preemptive attack to others (weaker side are always target). Nothing new for people who know history. The same powers keep all rights to prevent others to become able to defend themselves, again by any means. Who is strong, who is weak in this Israel – Palestinian game?
