U.S. Opposes Bringing UN Gaza Report to Security Council

State Department says U.S. rejects process by which an investigative committee was appointed by the UN Human Rights Council and is against any further work on the report within the UN, in both New York and Geneva.

Barak Ravid

Jun 24, 2015

Send in e-mailSend in e-mail

The IDF using the Hannibal procedure in Rafah in August during the Gaza war.Credit: Reuters

Barak Ravid

Jun 24, 2015

The United States is opposed to bringing the independent United Nations report on last summer's Gaza war to the Security Council for a vote, State Department spokesman John Kirby said Tuesday.

Kirby told a daily press briefing that the U.S. government is still reviewing and studying the UN report on Operation Protective Edge, which was released Monday and found evidence of war crimes on the part of both Israel and Hamas.

Kirby stressed that the U.S. opposes the process by which an investigative committee was appointed by the UN Human Rights Council and is against any further work on the report within the UN, in both New York and Geneva. "We don't believe that there is a call or a need for further Security Council work on this. We don't support any more UN work on this report," said Kirby.

The report found evidence that both Israel and Hamas committed war crimes during the war in the Gaza Strip last summer and called the devastation caused in the Palestinian territory "unprecedented."

The members of the commission, which was appointed by the UN Human Rights Council, hinted in their report that the upper levels of the Israeli political echelon were responsible for the policies that led to some of these war crimes.

“The extent of the devastation and human suffering in Gaza was unprecedented and will impact generations to come” said the commission’s American chairwoman, Justice Mary McGowan Davis. “There is also on-going fear in Israel among communities who come under regular threat.”

The chairwoman of the commission urged the international community to act on the conclusions of the report - primarily by supporting an investigation by the International Criminal Court in The Hague in to the status of the occupied Palestinian territories.