GENEVA, (Reuters) – The United Nations Human Rights Council yesterday voted to set up an independent fact-finding mission to look into what it called violations of international law in Israel’s raid on a Gaza aid flotilla.
In a resolution proposed by Pakistan for the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) and Sudan for the Arab group, the Council by a vote of 32 of its 47 members also condemned the Israeli action as outrageous.
The United States, Israel’s longtime ally, together with Italy and the Netherlands voted against, while nine European, African and Asian nations abstained and three more African countries did not vote.
The resolution called “for full accountability and credible independent inquiries into these (Israeli) attacks” in which Israel says nine people on one boat in the flotilla died.
The Council decided to dispatch an independent, international fact-finding mission to investigate violations of international law in the attack, it said.
The team would be appointed by the Council president and Belgian diplomat Alex Van Meeuwen — whose own country along with four other European Union members abstained in the voting.
Israel says those who were killed were resisting commandos who boarded the ships of the flotilla to stop it reaching Gaza. It began releasing the 682 pro-Palestinian activists it arrested on the vessels earlier yesterday.
It was not immediately clear when the rights council mission would be set up or who might be on it. Diplomats said it was unlikely that Israel would agree to cooperate with it. The rights council, set up in 2006, is effectively controlled by developing countries among whom the OIC has strong influence, and regularly condemns Israel.
The text of the flotilla resolution differed from a statement from the U.N. Security Council in New York on Tuesday which called for a “prompt, impartial, credible and transparent investigation conforming to international standards.”
