UN to open permanent probe on Israel

UN to open permanent probe on Israel

Wed, 14 Mar 2007 11:18:51

The United Nation's Human Rights Council is expected to place Israel under permanent investigation for its violations of international law in Palestine.

Hillel Neuer, the executive director of UN Watch, told The Jerusalem Post from Geneva that it's one of at least four anti-Israel actions he expects the council to take during its fourth session, which started in Geneva on Monday and runs through April 5.

The 47-member UN body which was created in June 2006 to replace the Human Rights Commission, has issued eight anti-Israel resolutions and has also held three special sessions on the regime.

Neuer and Israel's ambassador to the UN in Geneva, Yitzhak Levanon, said they expected this session to continue in that same pattern, although the council is also expected to discuss human rights abuses in other parts of the world, including in Darfur, Sudan.

Neuer said Israel would be rapped for the Antiquities Authority's excavation near Al-Aqsa Mosque, the work which has been widely condemned throughout the Muslim world.

Neuer said the council would also take Israel to task for refusing entry to inquiry teams in July and November 2006. The first team was sent to investigate Israel's actions against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip and the second team was dispatched to investigate the Israeli army's artillery barrage that killed 19 civilians in Beit Hanun in the northern Gaza Strip last November.

The Human Rights Council is also set to hear a report compiled by UN Special Reporter John Dugard that compares Israeli actions in the Palestinian occupied lands to that of the former apartheid system in South Africa.

MM/BH/BG