UN rights council votes for fact-finding mission over flotilla attack

UN human rights council votes to set up an independent investigation into Israel's Gaza attack. This is the same body that set up the Goldstone inquiry into the conduct of Israel's 2008/9 war against the people of Gaza.

A United Nations body has frustrated Israeli and US efforts to prevent an international probe into the killing of nine pro-Palestinian protesters by voting to set up a fact-finding mission into Monday’s raid on a Gaza-bound aid convoy.

The Geneva based UN Human Rights Council backed by 32 votes to three a resolution on Wednesday that condemned “in the strongest terms the outrageous attack by the Israeli forces against the humanitarian flotilla of ships” that was trying to break Israel’s blockade of the Gaza Strip this week.

The US, the Netherlands and Italy voted against the motion, which was sponsored by Pakistan, Sudan and the Palestinians while nine countries, including France, Belgium, Japan, the UK and South Korea abstained.

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