New York - Human rights group Amnesty International Friday
called on the United Nations Security Council to deploy human rights
investigators in Israel and the Gaza Strip and to hold the warring
parties accountable for war crimes.
The London-based group said in a letter to the 15-nation council
that it should take 'firm action to ensure full accountability for
war crimes and other serious abuses of international human rights and
humanitarian law' in Gaza.
It asked that investigators be sent to Gaza and southern Israel to
report on abuses by all parties in the Israel-Hamas conflict.
On Thursday, the council adopted a resolution calling for an
immediate, durable and fully respected ceasefire. But the truce call
was rejected by both Israel and Hamas, which continued fighting
Friday.
Amnesty criticized the UN resolution for not addressing war crimes
and other serious abuses of international law, or providing for an
investigation of those abuses.
'The security council must ensure that there is full
accountability for all such crimes committed during the conflict,'
Amnesty said.
The UN reported 792 people killed and thousands others injured. It
said up to 15 per cent of the dead were women and children.
The Simon Wiesenthal Centre, which investigated and pursued Nazis
involved in the Holocaust, demanded a probe into allegations that
Hamas used human shields in the conflict with Israel.
'Any UN investigation of the current situation in Gaza must first
focus on Hamas' uses of human shields and the terrorist group's core
strategy of systematically deploying rocket launchers and other
military hardware in, under and around schools, mosques, homes and
shopping areas,' the Los Angeles-based centre said.
In Geneva, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Navi Pillay,
told the Human Rights Council that 'grave violations' of human rights
have been committed in Gaza. She urged the council to discuss the
issue of war crimes in the Gaza.
'I remind this council that violations of international
humanitarian law may constitute war crimes for which individual
criminal responsibility may be invoked,' Pillay said.
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