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| Ander Nieuws week 40 / nieuwe oorlog 2008 |
 
 
 
Israeli shelling of Gaza village could be war crime: UN report

 
Agence France Presse
September 24, 2008
 
The UN Human Rights Council voted Wednesday to adopt a report of inquiry that says the Israeli shelling of a Palestinian village in which 19 people died could be construed as a war crime.
 
The 24-page report on the November 8, 2006 attack on Beit Hanoun, in the Gaza Strip, was prepared by a high-level fact-finding mission led by South African bishop and Nobel peace prize laureate Desmond Tutu.
 
While criticising the radical Palestinian faction Hamas for lobbing rockets at Israeli civilians, the report regretted that Israel -- which regards the council as biased against it -- refused to cooperate with the mission.
 
"In the absence of a well-founded explanation from the Israeli military ... the mission must conclude that there is a possibility that the shelling of Beit Hanoun constituted a war crime," it said.
 
In its own internal inquiry, Israel blamed a technical fault with its artillery radar guidance system for the Beit Hanoun deaths, and decided in February not to punish the military units involved.
 
The report was adopted by a vote of 32 in favour and nine -- Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, Slovakia and Slovenia -- against, with five abstentions.
 
Copyright © 2008 Agence France Presse.
 
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| Ander Nieuws week 40 / nieuwe oorlog 2008 |