Following the
2021 Israel–Palestine crisis
A major outbreak of violence in the ongoing Israeli–Palestinian conflict commenced on 10 May 2021, though disturbances took place earlier, and continued until a ceasefire came into effect on 21 May. It was marked by protests and police riot ...
, the
United Nations Human Rights Council voted on 27 May 2021 to set up a
United Nations fact-finding mission
A United Nations fact-finding mission, also called a United Nations commission of inquiry, is a United Nations mission carried out with the intention to discover facts. They are often sent to troubled areas. Fact-finding missions have been sent b ...
to investigate possible war crimes and other abuses committed in Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories.
Mission members
Navi Pillay (
South Africa
South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the southernmost country in Africa. It is bounded to the south by of coastline that stretch along the South Atlantic and Indian Oceans; to the north by the neighbouring countri ...
), serves as chair,
Miloon Kothari
Miloon Kothari is a scholar and activist who served from 2000 to 2008 as the United Nations Special Rapporteur on adequate housing with the Human Rights Council. Since 2015, he has been the President of UPR Info. He was convener of the Workin ...
(
India
India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...
) and
Chris Sidoti
Christopher 'Chris' Dominic Sidoti (born 1951) is an Australian expert on international human rights law, a lawyer and advocate. He is a former Human Rights Commissioner, and a former commissioner of the Australian Law Reform Commission, and ha ...
(
Australia
Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...
) serve as members of the commission.
Mandate
The commission will report to the Human Rights Council annually from June 2022.
Unlike previous fact finding missions the inquiry is open ended and will examine "all underlying root causes of recurrent tensions, instability and protraction of conflict, including systematic discrimination and repression based on national, ethnic, racial or religious identity."
Manpower was reduced from 24 to 18 persons following a US-Israel campaign to reduce the Commission budget. On 17 February 2022, Israel said it will not cooperate with the commission, alleging bias. At the end of March, 68 US senators signed a letter to Secretary of State
Antony Blinken calling for the Biden administration to use its influence to quash the inquiry.
Reports
The first report was released on 7 June 2022. The report said that ending the occupation would be insufficient. It said that the root cause of the problems lay in "perpetual occupation" with no intent to end it and that Israel wanted "complete control" over the occupied area. Israel refused access to Israel or the Palestinian territories, Palestinian and Israeli testimony was collected in Geneva and Jordan. Israel’s Foreign Ministry and the U.S State department rejected the report as biased. When the report was formally presented to the 50th session of the Human Rights Council on 13 June 2022, the United States representative read out a statement objecting to the mandate given to the Committee, saying that it was unfair scrutiny of Israel. Including the United States and Israel, twenty-two countries, most not UNHRC members, signed the statement. Addressing the Council, Navi Pillay said "Given a clear refusal by Israel to take concrete measures to implement the findings and recommendations of past commissions, the international community must urgently explore new ways of ensuring compliance with international law." She also criticized the Palestinian Authority for its failure to hold legislative and Presidential elections and leaders in Gaza for their failure to uphold human rights standards.
On 20 October 2022, the commission released a report to the United Nations General Assembly, calling on the Security Council to end Israel’s "permanent occupation" and on individual UN member states to prosecute Israeli officials. The report found "reasonable grounds" to conclude that the occupation "is now unlawful under international law due to its permanence" and Israel's "de-facto annexation policies." The commission has requested that an
International Court of Justice
The International Court of Justice (ICJ; french: Cour internationale de justice, links=no; ), sometimes known as the World Court, is one of the six principal organs of the United Nations (UN). It settles disputes between states in accordanc ...
advisory opinion declaring the occupation illegal be obtained. Israeli prime minister
Yair Lapid said the report is "biased, false, inciting and blatantly unbalanced" and tweeted that "Not all criticism of Israel is anti-Semitism, but this report was written by anti-Semites … and is a distinctly anti-Semitic report".
See also
*
International Criminal Court investigation in Palestine
The Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court ( ICC), Fatou Bensouda, on 20 December 2019 announced an investigation into war crimes allegedly committed in Palestine by Israeli personnel or members of Hamas and other Palestinian armed groups ...
*
Legality of the Israeli occupation of Palestine
The legality of the Israeli occupation of Palestine, which has continued since 1967 and is the longest military occupation in modern history, is a subject that has received much less attention than violations of international humanitarian law (IHL) ...
References
{{Reflist
External links
The United Nations Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel
Israeli–Palestinian conflict and the United Nations
United Nations commissions