Israel Bars UN Gaza Investigators From Country

Rules Out Any Cooperation With War Crimes Probe

The Israeli government has announced that it is denying entry to members of the UN Human Rights Council commission charged with investigating war crimes committed during the summer Israeli invasion of the Gaza Strip.

The Foreign Ministry says they will not cooperate in any way with the probe, and that they believe the UN will “obviously” find Israel guilty of war crimes for the near 1,500 Palestinian civilians killed during the conflict.

This is nothing unusual for Israel’s far-right government, which angrily condemned the announcement that a probe was taking place, and which takes its non-cooperation and open hostility to such probes as a matter of course.

Similar probes during the 2009-09 invasion of Gaza, as well as the 2006 Israeli invasion of Lebanon saw similar Israeli opposition. At the time the US was also condemning the UN for “bias” against Israel, though with US-Israeli ties at a long-term low, this may no longer be the case.

Author: Jason Ditz

Jason Ditz is Senior Editor for Antiwar.com. He has 20 years of experience in foreign policy research and his work has appeared in The American Conservative, Responsible Statecraft, Forbes, Toronto Star, Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Providence Journal, Washington Times, and the Detroit Free Press.