Desmond Tutu Calls For Israel 'War Crime' probe

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Desmond Tutu is the South African archbishop; Tutu has stated Israel may have committed a war crime when it attacked the town of Beit Hanoun in Gaza two years ago, killing 19 people.

Tutu speaking to the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva on Thursday said, "The response of a largely secret internal [Israeli] military investigation is absolutely unacceptable from both legal and moral points of view.

"Faced with this absence of a well-founded explanation from the Israeli military ... the mission has to conclude that there is a possibility that the shelling of Beit Hanoun constituted a war crime."

The UN rights council was debating Tutu's report which was based on a fact-finding mission last May and which called for an independent investigation into the deadly strike on the town in November 2006.

In February, The Israeli military said, after its own investigation into the shelling of Beit Hanoun, it had directed artillery fire at the town after receiving reports that "militants" were planning rocket attacks.

Tutu said his mission never had access to the Israeli report of its investigation.

"No verifiable explanation has been offered, no independent impartial and transparent investigation has been held, no one has been held to account," he said.

"This unjust and illegal action by Israel has vastly increased the suffering of a population which, being under occupation, is legally entitled to look to Israel for protection and support.

The occupation remains the root cause of incidents such as the shelling of Beit Hanoun."
Mohammad Abu-Koash, the Palestinian ambassador to the UN, said Tutu's report should be brought to the attention of both the International Court of Justice and the International Criminal Court.

The Israeli shelling of civilians in Beit Hanoun while asleep in their homes and targeting of those fleeing is a war crime and its perpetrators must be brought before international justice."

Aharon Leshno Yaar, the Israeli ambassador to the UN, replied: "A thorough internal investigation was conducted and the results of this investigation shared with the United Nations.

"Nothing can be gained by rehashing this topic now."


"This silence begets complicity," Tutu said.

"The right to life has been violated not just through the killings [in Beit Hanoun], but also through the lack of an adequate investigation of the killings.

"The right to physical and mental health has been and continues to be violated in a number of ways."

Tutu later added: "I think the West, quite rightly, is feeling contrite, penitent, for its awful connivance with the Holocaust.

"I just hope again that ordinary citizens in the West will wake up and say 'we refuse to be part of this'."