U.N. Human Rights Council meets in Geneva ahead of its report on Operation Protective Edge, expected to be released this week • Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu: Israel’s actions in Gaza were in full accordance with international law.
By Shlomo Cesana, Gideon Allon, Yori Yalon and Israel Hayom Staff
Israeli tanks on the Gaza border last summer
The 29th session of the Geneva-based U.N. Human Rights Council got underway on Monday, with its report on last summer’s Operation Protective Edge expected this week. The report will likely include harsh criticism of Israel, and officials in Jerusalem are continuing pre-emptive efforts to mitigate its impact.
In Geneva on Monday, U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein expressed concern about the potential for new violence in the Gaza Strip.
“In Gaza, the long-standing blockade and slow reconstruction is generating more poverty and has further undermined economic and social rights,” he said. “I fear this may create the conditions for renewed violence. Gaza needs not just physical reconstruction, but the reconstruction of hope. Development, accountability and respect for human rights are a counterweight to violence and extremism.”
Al Hussein said he hoped the publication of the report on Operation Protective Edge would “pave the way for justice to be done to all civilians who fell victim to the fighting last year by holding to account those alleged to have committed grave and other serious violations of international humanitarian law, through investigation and, where required, prosecution.”
At a meeting in Jerusalem with visiting Polish Foreign Minister Grzegorz Schetyna on Monday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu referred to the Israeli government report on the operation that was published on Sunday.
“Yesterday, I received our official government report about last year’s conflict in Gaza. The report demonstrates unequivocally that our military actions during that conflict were in full accordance with international law, that Israel was exercising its legitimate right of self-defense,”
“We fulfill our responsibility to protect our people against terrorists who perpetuate and perpetrate a double war crime. Hamas terrorists deliberately target our civilians while deliberately hiding behind their civilians.”
Turning to the upcoming U.N. report, Netanyahu said,
“Israel was pronounced guilty before the investigation even began. They appointed a person to head this committee who was being paid by the Palestinians. This committee has more resolutions against Israel than against North Korea, Syria and Iran combined. This tells you what we’re dealing with. So this campaign, these attacks against Israel, these investigations against Israel, have nothing to do with human rights. They have everything to do with politically inspired attacks in a cynical effort to delegitimize Israel using U.N. bodies.”
Opposition Knesset members also took part in promoting the Israeli government’s report on the fighting in Gaza last summer. Zionist Union MK Tzipi Livni met in London on Monday with Parliamentary Undersecretary of State for the Foreign and Commonwealth Office Tobias Ellwood and presented him with the Israeli report.
“It is important that the British government have an accurate picture of the factual, ethical, and legal reality, because the U.N. report is expected to be so twisted and anti-Israel,” Livni said.
Yesh Atid leader Yair Lapid said on Monday that the U.N. had “lost its mind.”
“It’s not the IDF — the most moral army in the world — that the U.N. should be investigating, but rather itself,” Lapid said.
Meanwhile, Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon said Monday that Hamas was dealt the harshest blow in its history during Operation Protective Edge.
“The criticism on the results of the operation are not consistent with the security situation on the ground,” he said.
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