New York - An investigative report on Wednesday from the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva said that Israel's military interception of a flotilla of aid ships bound for the Gaza Strip in May was “clearly unlawful” and violent.
The report said there was “clear evidence to support prosecutions” because the Israeli military action amounted to willful killing, torture or inhuman treatment, which are crimes under the Fourth Geneva Convention.
Israel rejected the findings late on Wednesday. The foreign ministry said in a statement that the Human Rights Council had a “biased, politicised and extremist approach” and noted that it had refused to co-operate in the inquiry. Tel Aviv is conducting a separate internal investigation, it said.
The report from Geneva is separate from an investigation ordered by the UN Security Council in New York following the May 31
incident on the high seas off the Gaza Strip, in which eight Turkish nationals and one Turkish American were killed during the Israeli interception.
The four-member probe panel set up by UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has been working separately from the Geneva investigation, and includes representatives from both Israel and Turkey. That panel reported on September 15 to Ban that it had begun its investigation, but the UN did not provide any details of the panel's activities and work on a report.
The 56-page report from a Human Rights Council fact-finding mission that investigated the incident reached the “firm conclusion that a humanitarian crisis existed on May 31, 2010, in Gaza Strip.”
“The preponderance of evidence from impeccable sources is far too overwhelming to come to a contrary conclusion,” the report said.
It said the action from the Israeli Defence Forces on the Mavi Marmara, the main ship in the flotilla, “in the circumstances and for the reasons given on the high sea was clearly unlawful.”
“Specifically the action cannot be justified in the circumstances under Article 51 of the UN Charter,” the report said, citing the article that allows a nation to take arms in self-defence.
Israel had justified the military action as a means to maintain its arms blockade of the Gaza Strip, which is ruled by the militant Hamas Islamist movement.
“The conduct of the Israeli military and other personnel towards the flotilla passengers was not only disproportionate to the occasion but demonstrated levels of totally unnecessary and incredible violence,” the report said.
“It betrayed an unacceptable level of brutality.”
The fact-finding mission was mandated by the UN Human Rights Council to find out whether the international law and human rights were breached. It conducted interviews with over 100 witnesses in Geneva, London, Istanbul and Amman. But Israel rejected the mission's request for interviews. - Sapa-dpa