JERUSALEM, (Reuters) – Israel rejected yesterday a proposal by U.N. Secretary-General Ban ki-Moon for an international investigation into its deadly raid on a Gaza-bound aid ship and said it had the right to launch its own inquiry.
“We are rejecting an international commission. We are discussing with the Obama administration a way in which our inquiry will take place,” Michael Oren, Israel’s ambassador to Washington, said on the U.S. TV programme “Fox News Sunday”.
The U.N. chief had suggested establishing a panel that would be headed by former New Zealand prime minister Geoffrey Palmer and include representatives from Turkey, Israel and the United States, an Israeli official said earlier in Jerusalem.
Netanyahu discussed the proposal for a multinational panel with Ban in a telephone call on Saturday but told cabinet ministers from his right-wing Likud party yesterday that Israel was exploring other options, political sources said.
Nine Turks were killed on Monday in the Israeli commando raid on the Mavi Marmara, part of a six-vessel convoy that set out to challenge an Israeli-led blockade of the Gaza Strip. Israel has said its troops used lethal force in self-defence after they were set upon by pro-Palestinian activists wielding clubs and knives.
Israeli leaders have spoken publicly about setting up an internal investigation with foreign observers into the interception of the Turkish-flagged ship off the coast of Gaza, an enclave run by Hamas Islamists who oppose Western-backed Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’s peace efforts with Israel.
“Israel is a democratic nation. Israel has the ability and the right to investigate itself, not to be investigated by any international board,” Oren said.
Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu, speaking on CNN, said Ankara would insist on an independent commission and suggested that Israel’s rejection of an international inquiry showed it wanted to cover up the facts of the raid.
“We want to know the facts. If Israel rejects this, it means it is also another proof of their guilt. They are not self-confident to face the facts,” he said.
Turkey’s relations with Israel, once a close ally, have soured badly since the deadly raid.
Israel’s navy boarded another ship carrying aid and pro-Palestinian activists to Gaza on Saturday. Its interception of the Irish-owned MV Rachel Corrie ended without violence following diplomatic efforts to avoid bloodshed.
