UN rights body backs call for accountability in Gaza war

Israel has strongly resisted allegations its troops violated global law, claims that could have serious implications after Palestinians joined the global Criminal Court, where they are pursuing war crimes charges against Israel.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu slammed the UNHRC vote, saying that the council “is not interested in facts and human rights”.

The decision to again the report was adopted with robust European help, with forty one council members, together with Germany, France, and Britain, voting in favour the report, whereas exclusively the United States voting towards.

Earlier, Israel’s internal security agency said it had uncovered a Hamas militant cell operating in the Nablus area of the West Bank.

India has been steadfast in its support to Palestine and to the Palestinian people’s struggle for a sovereign and independent state of Palestine within recognised borders with East Jerusalem as its capital and its peaceful co-existence with Israel.

“It turns out there’s no limit to hypocrisy”, Netanyahu wrote in a Facebook post.

Israeli forces shot and killed a Palestinian teenager in the occupied West Bank on Friday as he and others hurled stones and rocks at an army vehicle, the Israeli military said, while Palestinian Authority security forces in the West Bank arrested more than 100 members of its rival group Hamas in the biggest such roundup in years.

Explaining his country’s “no” vote, U.S. ambassador Keith Harper said: “We are troubled that this resolution focuses exclusively on alleged Israeli violations without any express reference to Palestinian violations”.

Last summer’s war between Israel and Hamas also set back any efforts at reconciliation.

Israeli security officials have described most of the attacks against Israelis over the past year as the work of Palestinian individuals without the backing of an organization.

The resolution is based on the report of the Commission of Inquiry on the 2014 Gaza Conflict, headed by Mary McGowan Davis, who presented the report to the Council.

The Israeli military, however, said it was still checking whether the rocket was fired from Sinai or the Gaza Strip. “We talked to a lot of witnesses but of course an investigation needs to be as close to the scene as possible and it would have looked different”.

In his condemnation of the UNHRC, the prime minister mentioned the rocket strike along with brutal Islamic State terrorist attacks in Syria, the atrocities of the ongoing Syrian civil war and Iran’s arbitrary executions of minority group members, indicating that the United Nations body should concentrate on those issues.

The extremists have made no secret of their disdain for Hamas over its observance of a tacit ceasefire with Israel and its failure to implement Islamic law. “There is also on-going fear in Israel among communities who come under regular threat”.