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U.N. launches abuse inquiry over Israeli protests
GAZA (CNN) -- A three-member U.N. commission arrived in Gaza on Saturday for a three-day investigation into alleged human rights abuses during nearly five months of a Palestinian uprising against Israel in the Middle East. Israel has refused to cooperate with the inquiry and has condemned the U.N. resolution that set up the panel. The U.N.'s Human Rights Commission set the inquiry in motion to "investigate humanitarian rights violations and breaches of international humanitarian law committed since the resumption of violent confrontations in the area on September 28."
More than 400 people, most of them Palestinians, have been killed since that date. The trio will visit Gaza, Jerusalem, Ramallah, Hebron, Bethlehem and Beit Jala, and is expected to submit its report to the annual session of the Human Rights Commission starting March 19, a U.N. statement said. Violence in West Bank, GazaThe U.N. team arrived in the troubled region amid a fresh rash of battles between Israeli troops and Palestinians in both the West Bank and Gaza. Israelis and Palestinians traded gunfire in Gaza, while soldiers fired tear gas and rubber-coated steel bullets at stone-throwing Palestinians near a Jewish settlement in the West Bank. The Israeli army said the Gush Katif settlement and the Rafah border crossing in Gaza had come under Palestinian fire, as well as a border police post in Tulkarm in the West Bank. An army spokeswoman reported intense gunfire between the Palestinian town of al-Bireh and the Psagot settlement. No casualties were reported. Also in Gaza, near the Jewish settlement of Kfar Darom, angry Palestinians vowed revenge as they buried a teen-ager killed by Israeli soldiers on Friday. Diplomatic trips plannedMeanwhile, Arab foreign ministers discussed the situation during a meeting in Amman, Jordan. Arab League Secretary-General Esnat Abdel-Meguid and his colleagues were to touch on the violence, as well as the election of hard-line Likud party chairman Ariel Sharon as Israel's next prime minister. "We are watching his attitude and his actions very carefully," Abdel-Meguid said. "If he follows the same attitude we know and have been reading about, we are heading for a disaster in the area. His country, Israel, will not be spared and will suffer as the area will suffer." Palestinian Authority leader Yasser Arafat will meet Egypt's President Hosni Mubarak on Tuesday to discuss options for the peace process now that Sharon has won election over the left-leaning incumbent Prime Minister Ehud Barak. The meeting, expected to be held in Cairo, will be the first between the two leaders since Sharon trounced Barak, whose campaign was crippled by the ongoing violence between Israelis and Palestinians, in Tuesday's election. Egypt, the first Arab state to sign a peace deal with Israel, has traditionally played an active role as mediator in the Arab-Israeli conflict. Sharon and Arafat also are expected to meet with U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell when Powell visits the region later this month, a trip he announced on Friday. His visit coincides with the anniversary of the end of the Persian Gulf War against Iraq in 1991. Powell was chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff during that conflict. Sharon telephones ArafatSharon made his first telephone call to Arafat on Friday, telling the Palestinian leader that he was interested in resuming peace talks, providing the violence stops. He also invited Barak to join the new government as defense minister in a bid to lure the rival Labor into a coalition with his right-leaning Likud party. If he fails to form a national unity government with Labor, Sharon may be forced to create a weaker coalition with more radical right-wing nationalist and religious groups. Either way, the controversial Sharon has until the end of March to form a government and pass a budget for Israel -- or the state's parliament will disband and call for new elections. Sharon aides said the outgoing prime minister had not given a response to the offer of the defense ministry, but Barak had said after losing Tuesday's election that he planned to step back from politics for a time once Sharon's government has been installed. Sharon, who has renounced peace proposals made by Barak, was elected by a landslide on Tuesday with a pledge to stamp out violence and take a harder line in any future peace talks. Barak, meanwhile, informed Arafat in a letter that concessions offered by his government in the waning days of the campaign were now not valid. The Palestinians had pushed to resume talks where they left off. The Associated Press & Reuters contributed to this report. RELATED STORIES:
U.N. studies Israeli abuse allegations RELATED SITES:
United Nations Human Rights Website |
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Recent acts of violence in the Middle East:
