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Israel boycotts UN Human Rights Council session on Gaza war

March 24, 2015 at 11:45 am

Israeli representatives remained absent from a United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) special session on Monday regarding the situation in the Palestinian territories in the aftermath of the Israeli war on Gaza last summer.

A source close to the council said the absence of any Israeli representative from the session clearly amounts to a “boycott”.

A spokeswoman for the Israeli delegation in Geneva told AFP that she had “No comment on the subject”.

The US representative was also absent from the session.

A spokesman for the US delegation explained that US ambassador Keith Harper was in Washington at the time of the meeting.

Israel has refused to cooperation with the UN investigation committee that began its mission immediately after the Israeli war on Gaza last summer.

The Israeli-instigated 50-day war on Gaza in the summer of 2014 killed an estimated 2,140 Palestinians, mostly civilians, and 73 Israelis, predominately soldiers.

Monday’s session had originally been scheduled to discuss the mission’s report on the most recent Gaza war, but investigators negotiated a delay after the head of the team, Canadian judge Willian Schabas, quit under Israeli pressure.

“The process cannot be rushed”, said former New York judge Mary McGowan Davis, who has taken over as head of the team.

Israel accused Schabas of bias, saying he provided legal advice to the Palestinian Liberation Organisation (PLO) in 2012.

The Israeli representative was also absent in January 2012 during a special session to review the human rights situation in Israel.

Israel plans to take its confrontation with the Palestinians to the international arena by accusing Hamas of war crimes and using Palestinian civilians as human shields.

Meanwhile, the Palestinians plan to prosecute Israel for war crimes at the International Criminal Court.