Adding insult to injury, Israel blocks the work of UN investigators charged with ascertaining if it committed war crimes in its New Year Gaza offensive, Amira Howeidy reports Israel is defying the United Nations again. A UN fact-finding mission on the war on Gaza was denied access to Israel and the occupied West Bank leaving investigators with no option but to limit their work to within the coastal Strip. The mission was formed in April by the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) with a mandate to investigate "all violations of international human rights law and international humanitarian law" that might have been committed "during, before or after" Israel's war on Gaza from 27 December 2008 to 18 January 2009. The 22-day war on besieged Gaza killed more than 1,400 Palestinians, destroyed much of the Strip's infrastructure, and was marked by the use of white phosphorous in densely populated areas. On 12 January -- 16 days into the war -- the UNHRC issued a non-binding resolution that accused Israel of "massive violations of the human rights of the Palestinian people". It also decided to dispatch an "urgent" independent international fact-finding mission to investigate alleged violations. The mission's findings were due to be presented to the council's session in March. Far from the required urgency stated in the January resolution, the mission was formed as late as 3 April and started its work 4 May. Headed by veteran judge Richard Goldstone, former member of the South African Constitutional Court and former chief prosecutor of the international criminal tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda, the mission decided to visit "affected areas", including Gaza, the West Bank and Southern Israel. After Israel denied it entry, the mission visited Gaza -- via Egypt -- from 1-5 June. At the end of that four-day visit Goldstone said he was "shocked" by the scale of destruction in Gaza. He refused to comment on his mission's findings, which are due to be released in a report within three months. The UN mission's Gaza visit could be followed by other visits later. Justifying its refusal to allow the mission into the West Bank, Tel Aviv alleged that the UNHRC was "biased" against Israel. Quoted by the Israeli daily Haaretz, 5 June, Foreign Ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor said: "They should call us the day the Human Rights Council decides on a human rights inquiry on some other place around the globe," he said, like Darfur and Sri Lanka. "After that, we may start to be convinced that they are not singling out Israel." After its war on Gaza, Amnesty International accused Israel of committing war crimes for repeatedly shelling densely populated areas with white phosphorous. When white phosphorous meets human skin it burns through muscle to the bone. Human Rights Watch previously accused Israel of using the incendiary weapon, but did not term it a war crime. UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay said some Israeli actions reported in Gaza might "warrant prosecutions for war crimes". Since its establishment in 2006, the UNHRC has come under attack by Israel for its repeated condemnation of Israel, its practices against the Palestinians and continuous violations of international humanitarian law. In response, the council has been careful in selecting its rapporteurs. Richard Falk, the current United Nations Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories, isn't only a top US professor of international law -- he's also Jewish. Goldstone is also Jewish, with "close ties to Israel", according to the Associated Press. Yet Goldstone and his mission of heavy-weight investigators (including professor of international law at the London School of Economics Christine Chinkin, also member of the High Level Fact Finding Mission to Beit Hanoun, Hina Jilani, advocate of the Supreme Court of Pakistan and member of the International Commission of Inquiry on Darfur, and Colonel Desmond Travers, a former officer in the Irish Armed Forces and member of the board of directors of the Institute of International Criminal Investigations) were rejected by Israel and denied entry within its borders and into the occupied West Bank. "In addition to their contributions in their fields, their choice by the UNHRC has a political dimension," Salah Amer, professor of international law at Cairo University said. He explained that by denying the mission access to Israeli military sources, the UNHRC investigators might not obtain evidence of international humanitarian law violations by specific Israeli individuals, though "this will not undermine the credibility of their final report and findings." In fact, "Israel is only demonstrating that it has something to hide," he told Al-Ahram Weekly. The UN team announced Thursday that it will hold public hearings with the war's victims later this month in Gaza, and in Geneva at the end of the month. According to Amer, these hearings are a procedure that allows the team to learn more about public opinion in Gaza. The objective is to offer "some sort of healing or satisfaction for the victims", similar to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission hearings that took place in South Africa after the abolition of apartheid. It is unclear what the UN team plans to do next as its members have been silent about their investigation. According to an AP report on 9 June, the team conducted a "wide ranging investigation into the war's most prominent allegations". Goldstone's 15-member team met with Hamas and UN officials, collected reports from Palestinian human rights groups, and interviewed dozens of survivors. But six months after the massacre, many are wondering if evidence of white phosphorous used in densely populated areas, or the use of biological and experimental weapons by Israel, could be compromised, so much time having passed. "Not really," said Amer, who is one of Egypt's top international law experts. "There are medical reports that documented such cases during the war. There are forensic reports. And there are, of course, the bodies of the victims. The evidence is there."
