The United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) overwhelmingly voted to adopt a resolution backing the Gaza Conflict Commission of Inquiry’s recent report on last year’s war between Israel and the Hamas terrorist group.
Forty-one council members voted in favor of the resolution, including several European allies of Israel such as France, Germany, U.K., Ireland, and the Netherlands. Five countries abstained from the vote: Kenya, Ethiopia, Macedonia, India, and Paraguay. The US made the lone vote against the report.
Israel’s representative to the UNHRC, Eviatar Manor, called the resolution an “anti-Israel manifesto,” saying it “distorts the intention of the authors of the report by completely ignoring alleged violations of [international law] committed by Hamas and other Palestinian armed groups,” the Times of Israel reported.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu condemned the decision, stating on Friday that “The UN Human Rights Council is not interested in the facts and is not really interested in human rights.”
“On the day on which Israel was fired at from Sinai, and at a time when ISIS is committing vicious terrorist attacks in Egypt, as Assad slaughters his people in Syria and as the number of arbitrary executions per annum climbs in Iran – the UN Human Rights Council decides to condemn the State of Israel for no fault of its own, for acting to defend itself from a murderous terrorist organization,” the prime minister continued.
“Israel is a stable democracy in the Middle East that upholds equal rights for all its citizens and acts in accordance with international law. Those who fear to openly attack terrorism will – in the end – be attacked by terrorism. The council that has hitherto adopted more decisions against Israel than against all other countries cannot call itself a human rights council.”
Netanyahu vowed, “The State of Israel will continue to defend its citizens against those who call for its destruction and take daily action to achieve this goal.”
The report, headed by former New York State Supreme Court judge Mary McGowan Davis, found that both Israel and Hamas committed “serious violations of international humanitarian law” in Gaza that “may amount to war crimes.”
While the report criticized Hamas for “indiscriminate” targeting of Israeli civilians with rockets, it placed heavy blame on Israel for the deaths of 1,462 civilians among the total of 2,251 Palestinians who died in the conflict.
With additional reporting by Lea Speyer
