The United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) approved three resolutions regarding occupied Palestinian territory and Palestinian rights during the 28th regular session. The month long session ended yesterday, bringing praise from PLO Executive Committee Member Dr. Hanan Ashrawi for widespread support from the majority of member states for the resolutions. The resolutions called for the right of the Palestinian people to self-determination, "including their right to live in freedom, justice and dignity and the right to their independent State of Palestine," confirmed Palestinian right to sovereignty over natural wealth and resources, and condemned the continuation of all settlement activities in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem. The United States was the only UNHRC member to vote against the three resolutions, drawing criticism from Ashrawi. more

Israel's representative was conspicuously missing when the UN Human Rights Council started a special session Monday on the situation in the Palestinian territories and the 2014 Gaza conflict. "I note the representative of Israel is not present," said council president Joachim Ruecher. Israel provided no immediate explanation for their absence at the session dedicated overwhelmingly to discussion of its policies and alleged abuses, but a source close to the council said it clearly amounted to a boycott. "We won't comment on that," a spokeswoman with the Israeli mission in Geneva told AFP. The United States was also absent from Monday's discussions. Asked to explain why the United States was not taking part, a spokesman said only that the US ambassador to the council Keith Harper was in Washington. Monday's session had originally been scheduled to discuss a probe on the 50-day war in Gaza last year, but the investigators obtained a delay after t...

(Reuters) - A U.N. inquiry into possible war crimes in the Gaza conflict will produce its report on time next month, officials said on Tuesday, brushing aside a demand from Israel's prime minister to shelve it after the chairman resigned. It marked the latest chapter in fraught relations between Israel and the main U.N. rights forum, which the Jewish state and its ally Washington accuse of bias against Israel. Activists voiced concern that Israel was trying to derail the inquiry. Mary McGowan Davis, already a member of the independent commission of inquiry on Gaza and a former justice of the Supreme Court of New York, will replace Canadian academic William Schabas, a United Nations statement said. "Her work will necessarily involve reviewing the commission of inquiry's work to date and ensuring that it impartially fulfils its important mandate," Philippe Dam of Human Rights Watch told Reuters. "We hope all parties will cooperate fully." Schabas said on ...

Palestinian resistance faction Hamas has blamed Israel for the resignation of the head of a commission formed by the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) to investigate last summer's Israeli military onslaught against the blockaded Gaza Strip. The resignation of William Schabas from his post is "the inevitable result of Israeli... pressure on the commission," Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum said in a statement. "Israeli pressure aims at preventing any legal action that would reveal the truth about Israeli crimes [during the Gaza onslaught]," he added. Nevertheless, Barhoum urged the UN to go ahead with the probe and not to bow to "any pressure or blackmail against its investigative committees." On Monday, Schabas, a Canadian professor of international law, reportedly resigned from his post as head of the investigation committee due to Israeli allegations of bias. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday welcomed Schabas' resignation and ...

NEW YORK (Ma'an) -- The UN Human Rights Council has appointed a three-member panel to investigate allegations of humanitarian law violations during Israel's Gaza assault, reports said Monday. The commission of inquiry will be headed by Canada’s William Schabas, an international law professor at Middlesex University in London, the UN council said in a statement quoted by Bloomberg news. more

Israel expects the commission of inquiry on Gaza, which the Human Rights Council of the United Nations set up, to reveal damning evidence against its actions in the wake of the serious crimes being committed in the Strip during the current offensive. Today, Israel Today reported the massive destruction caused by the offensive, in addition to the large number of deaths on the Palestinian side. It predicted that these crimes will not go unnoticed and Israel will be punished for them. In turn, there is a prevailing fear in Israel that the Human Rights Council will publish an incriminatory report that could lead to indictments against Israeli officials to the International Criminal Court in The Hague on the accusation of committing war crimes. The newspaper said that the political and military leadership in Israel has been preoccupied with how to face the commission of inquiry. A series of deliberations have been discussed, including the deliberations that took place in the Political-Se...

Israel's military actions in the Gaza Strip could amount to war crimes, UN rights chief Navi Pillay said, as Israel continued pounding Gaza for a 16th day. Pillay on Wednesday has also condemned indiscriminate rocket attacks by Palestinian fighters Hamas. "There seems to be a strong possibility that international law has been violated, in a manner that could amount to war crimes," Pillay told an emergency session on Israel's Gaza offensive at the UN Human Rights Council, citing attacks that have killed Palestinian civilians, including children. Pillay said the killing of civilians in Gaza, especially children, raises concerns over Israel’s precautions and respect for proportionality. Israeli assault’s on Gaza has claimed the lives of at least 648 Palestinians, including dozens of children. More than 4,000 people have been injured. The number of Israelis who died from fighting with Palestinian fighters has climbed to 31, including 29 soldiers and two civilians. O...

Credit: Reuters/Mohammed Salem (Reuters) - A United Nations human rights investigator accused Israel on Monday of imposing collective punishment on 1.75 million Palestinians living in the Gaza Strip and said that the enclave's viability was at stake. Both Israel and its close ally the United States boycotted the debate at the Human Rights Council where Richard Falk presented his latest report. It also calls for an inquiry into alleged torture of Palestinian detainees in Israel's custody. "Forty-six years ago today Israel's occupation of Palestine began. Six days of war has turned into 46 years of occupation," Falk, an independent investigator, told the Geneva forum. "The viability of Gaza needs urgent attention and cannot be left to the mercies of continuing Israeli occupation," he said of the Islamist Hamas-ruled strip, around which Israel maintains a blockade due to what it says are security concerns. Falk, who visited Gaza last December after ...

BETHLEHEM (Ma'an) -- Arab and Islamic blocs in the United Nations are drafting a resolution to ask the UN Human Rights Council to adopt the conclusions of a fact-finding mission on Israeli settlements, the regional director of a human rights group said Tuesday. Amani Sinwar, the regional director of the Euro Mediterranean Monitor for Human Rights, told Ma'an that the two groups will ask that the UN human rights body implement the recommendations of the report, which says settlement building must stop immediately and settlers evacuated from occupied territory. Christine Chanet, Chairperson of the Fact-Finding Mission, said Monday that settlement building was a "growing, creeping form of annexation" which compromised the Palestinian right to self-determination. Presenting the findings of the mission to the Human Rights Council, Chanet said that "Israel should put an immediate end to this colonization process, begin a process of withdrawing settlements, and e...

The UAE, speaking on behalf of the Arab Group, called on all parties concerned to immediately implement the recommendations contained in the United Nations Secretary-General’s report on the Fact-Finding Mission on the Gaza conflict. Obaid Salem Al Zaabi, Permanent Representative of the United Arab Emirates to the United Nations and other international organisations in Geneva, told the UN Human Rights Council, that Israel persisted with the occupation and the violations of international human rights law and international humanitarian law, and in particular the Fourth Geneva Convention. “The Palestinian people could not accept perpetual occupation and it was high time the international community implemented the provisions of the international law. Negotiations were indispensable to achieve this goal,” he said in his address at the Council’s general debate on the situation in Palestine and other occupied Arab Territories. The Human Rights Council heard a presentation of the report...

A report prepared and published by the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) accused the state of Israel of failing to prosecute Israeli soldiers and settlers who commit crimes against the Palestinian people in the occupied territories, the Arabs48 News Website reported. The report said that there is a serious increase in attacks carried out by settlers and soldiers against the unarmed Palestinian civilians in the occupied West Bank, including in occupied East Jerusalem. The report was submitted to the Human Rights Council during its Monday session in Geneva, and states that “Israel has failed to conduct the needed legal measures against Israeli soldiers and settlers who practice violence against the Palestinians and their property”. The report also revealed that an Israeli soldier, who was questioned by Israel for killing a Palestinian mother and her daughter, never faced charges until this moment, and said that three Israeli young settlers were placed under house arres...

(Reuters) - Israel's naval blockade of the Gaza Strip violates international law, a panel of human rights experts reporting to a U.N. body said on Tuesday, disputing a conclusion reached by a separate U.N. probe into Israel's raid on a Gaza-bound aid ship. The so-called Palmer Report on the Israeli raid of May 2010 that killed nine Turkish activists said earlier this month that Israel had used unreasonable force in last year's raid, but its naval blockade of the Hamas-ruled strip was legal. A panel of five independent U.N. rights experts reporting to the U.N. Human Rights Council rejected that conclusion, saying the blockade had subjected Gazans to collective punishment in "flagrant contravention of international human rights and humanitarian law." The four-year blockade deprived 1.6 million Palestinians living in the enclave of fundamental rights, they said. "In pronouncing itself on the legality of the naval blockade, the Palmer Report does not recognize th...

From the Free Gaza Movement In September 2010 the international Fact-Finding Mission to investigate violations of international law resulting from the Israeli attacks on the Freedom Flotilla I concluded that the conduct of the Israeli military towards its passengers, when it was unlawfully intercepted on the way to Gaza on 31 May 2001, “demonstrated levels of totally unnecessary and incredible violence... It constituted grave violations of human rights law and international humanitarian law.” Unfortunately and incredibly, Israel is threatening to use even greater violence against Freedom Flotilla II, which will sail to Gaza the end of this month. Its threats have included the use of snipers and canine units. Even more deplorable, world leaders, rather than demanding that Israel halt its provocative behaviour towards us and refrain from once again attacking unarmed civilians, have called the Flotilla initiative a provocation and have asked countries on the Mediterranean to prevent us fr...

The Turkish government today reminded its citizens of the dangers of taking part in flotilla 2 but made it clear it has no intention of trying to stop them, or protect them. The pro Israel Jerusalem Post described Turkey's attitude towards the upcoming aid mission as a "permissive stance" . Turkey is not withdrawing, as reported in some quarters, from the UN panel due to make a final decision on the report of the UN Human Rights Council into the massacre on the Mavi Marmara aid ship. But it has warned that it's "reaction would not be positive" if the panel bends to US wishes to neuter the report's findings. Despite a crisis in relations between the two countries, the Turkish military still has relatively strong ties with the Israeli military, but even these are thought to be threatened. Turkey warned Israel in April not to " make the same mistake" in reference to the attack on the last flotilla. From AFP Bilateral relations remain stuck in cri...

Following rumours about delays, flotilla organisers meeting in Paris have officially announced that Freedom Flotilla II - 'Stay Human' will be leaving towards the end of June. Turkish charity IHH announced last week that it would be sending a 1,000 ton ship to join June's flotilla aid mission to break the siege. See the press statement at GazaTVNews . The international steering committee of Freedom Flotilla II just concluded its planning meeting in Paris, a few weeks before the scheduled departure of the flotilla to Gaza. Freedom Flotilla II will leave during the third week of June, with ships departing from various European ports including Marseilles. We"re very pleased to announce the recent addition of a Swiss-German boat to the flotilla. In July 2010 Germany"s Bundestag passed a resolution calling for an end to the Israeli blockade of Gaza. A number of our respective governments have said the same. The UN Human Rights Committee Fact Finding Mission into the ...

The ethnic cleansing campaign against the Arab population of Jerusalem continues apace, with not a murmur from the West, although a US representative on the UN Human Rights Council, Richard Falk, has spoken out. Falk is accused of being biased by ISrael and is not allowed into the country. He has also called for Israel to be refereed to the International Court. Israel's expansion of settlements in East Jerusalem and eviction of Palestinians from their homes there is a form of ethnic cleansing, a United Nations investigator said on Monday. United States academic Richard Falk was speaking to the UN Human Rights Council as it prepared to pass resolutions condemning settlement building in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. The "continued pattern of settlement expansion in East Jerusalem combined with the forcible eviction of long-residing Palestinians are creating an intolerable situation" in the part of the city previously controlled by Jordan, he said. This situation "c...

Video above from Iran's Press TV shows the convoy about to depart from Ankara, Turkey, en route to Syria. The convoy was met at the Syrian border by a couple of hundred Palestinian refugees and an official reception Meanwhile, Palestinian human rights groups are furious with the PA for going along with the postponement by the UN Human Rights Council of an international criminal inquiry into the Mavi Marmara massacre.

UN Human Rights Council's has issued a damning verdict on the murder of nine pro-Palestine activists, accusing Israel of war crimes citing clear grounds for prosecutions. Unfortunately the US will likely be able to block any serious action against the terror state. A United Nations panel of human rights experts has accused Israel of war crimes through willful killing, unnecessary brutality and torture in its "clearly unlawful" assault on a ship attempting to break the blockade of Gaza in May in which nine Turkish activists died. The report by three experts appointed by the UN's Human Rights Council (UNHRC) described the seizure of MV Mavi Marmara, a Turkish vessel, by Israeli commandos as illegal under international law. more

Hamas has claimed responsibility for the killing of four settlers yesterday near Hebron on the West Bank. The attack was a shock for the Israelis who assumed Hamas was not capable of such operations on the West Bank. The attack has already served the purpose of embarrassing Abbas and Palestinian Authority . In truth the PA was doing that itself by agreeing to talks without a commitment from Israel to cease all settlement activity. The 'peace talks' were always an irrelevant joke. This attack makes them even more so. Meanwhile, the UN Human Rights Council has begun its investigation into the flotilla massacre. The team were started in Jordan and spoke to Arab MK members yesterday, one of whom declared that the commandos had been given a licence to kill. Israel is refusing to cooperate with the investigation. "Israel's use of large numbers of elite troops with sophisticated weaponry showed it intended to kill the passengers," added the lawmaker, who was aboard the...

The Arab League has given its blessing for the Palestinian Authority to open direct talks with Israel, although the 'timing' is left in Abbas's hands. Yesterday both the PA and Hamas restated their position, objecting to any such talks while settlements continued to expand. Abbas obviously has to tread carefully following the Goldstone debacle when he initially sided with the US by calling for a suspension of judgment by the UN human rights council inquiry. CAIRO (Reuters) – The Arab League said on Thursday it would back face-to-face peace talks between the Palestinians and Israel when the Palestinians believe the time is right. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, facing U.S. pressure to agree to such talks, has said he first wants progress in U.S.-mediated, indirect negotiations that began two months ago with the Arab League's blessing. Abbas briefed the Arab League's peace process committee in Cairo on Thursday about the indirect talks, which will end in Septe...