Desmond Tutu: Israel refused fact-finding mission to Gaza

Nobel laureate Tutu to head UN rights probe of Israeli killing of Palestinian civilians
Report, UN News, 29 November 2006
Former Anglican Archbishop of Cape Town and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Desmond Tutu will head the United Nations Human Rights Council fact-finding mission into Israeli military operations in Gaza established after 19 Palestinian civilians were killed in an attack on the town of Beit Hanoun earlier this month.

Tutu to head mission to Beit Hanoun
11/29/06 Al Jazeera.net
Desmond Tutu, the South African Nobel laureate, is to lead a UN fact-finding mission to investigate the killing of 19 Palestinians in their homes in Beit Hanoun earlier this month.

The United Nation Human Rights Council said the mission would report back by mid-December.Luis Alfonso De Alba, the president of the UNHRC, said that Tutu will travel to Gaza to "assess the situation of victims, address the needs of survivors, and make recommendations on ways and means to protect Palestinian civilians against further Israeli assaults".
Artillery bombardment

The UN Human Rights Council voted on November 15 to set up the fact-finding mission into the deaths during an Israeli artillery bombardment.

The former Anglican Archbishop chaired the South African Truth and Reconciliation after the end of the apartheid regime.

Thirty-two countries in the 47-member Council, mainly from Asia, Africa and the Middle East, voted for the resolution setting up the mission.

Eight countries, including Canada and European nations such as Britain and Germany, opposed the move.

Six nations, including France, Switzerland and Japan, abstained.

Nineteen Palestinians were killed on November 18 in the Israeli shelling of private homes in the northern Gaza town of Beit Hanun, which Israel blamed on a "technical malfunction".

Tutu is a former Anglican Archbishop in South Africa.

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Lack of Israeli cooperation prevents UN fact-finding mission to Beit Hanoun
Report, UN News, 11 December 2006
Israel's lack of cooperation has prevented a fact-finding mission from the United Nations Human Rights Council from visiting Beit Hanoun in the northern Gaza Strip, where an Israeli attack last month killed 19 Palestinian civilians, the head of the team, Nobel Peace Prize laureate Desmond Tutu, said today.

Dorothy Naor - December 12, 2006
For those of you who have been wondering about the delay in Desmond Tutu's fact finding mission re the shelling of Beit Hanoun, now weknow: Israel delayed and delayed issuing a permit for the investigation until the Bishop understood the message: he was not tobe allowed into Gaza (this Israeli conduct was to be expected fromIsrael's past performance on such issues).

Such a 'democracy' is Israel! Freedom of speech? Nonsense! It's policy is no opinion allowed but the official Israeli one published by its best propagandists, as, for instance, Mark Regev. Of course this official Israeli opinion on Beit Hanoun states that the shelling that killed 19 people (most caught unawares in bed asleep) was"unintended." That won't bring the 19 back to life or the seriously injured back to health or the psychologically injured back to normal, any more than will George Bush's favorite word for human lives:"collatoral damage."

Desmond Tutu: Israel refused fact-finding mission to Gaza
Last update - 16:29 11/12/2006 Haaretz
By The Associated Press
"We find the lack of cooperation by the Israeli government very distressing, as well as its failure to allow the missing timely passage to Israel," Tutu told reporters after UN officials said Israel had blocked his UN fact-finding mission to the Gaza Strip.

Tutu finds blocking of Gaza mission by Israel 'distressing'
Ellen Teague, LONDON - 19 December 2006
Archbishop Desmond Tutu, former Anglican Archbishop of Capetown and Nobel Peace Prize Laureate, has been unable to reach the Gaza Strip for a UN fact-finding mission because Israel would not cooperate with the visit. In a statement issued from Geneva last week, he said he and the assembled fact-finding team found "the lack of co-operation by the Israeli Government very distressing, as well as its failure to allow the mission timely passage to Israel". They had resisted entering Gaza through Egypt because they wanted to visit Israel as well and had "hoped for meetings with members of the [Israeli] Government at a high level".

The UN had appointed the Archbishop to lead a mission to the town of Beit Hanoun in Gaza, where 19 Palestinians were killed during Israeli military operations last month. The visit was to follow a UN Human Rights Council's resolution calling for a mission to "make recommendations on ways and means to protect Palestinians against further Israeli assaults". Israel has apologised for the 8 November attack, calling it the result of a technical error. Archbishop Tutu said the visit intended to look at human rights and humanitarian law violations by both sides, with a view to contributing "to the creation of a climate conducive to negotiations". In the statement, concern was expressed about the "humanitarian crisis of very serious proportions" in Gaza. "This is a time in our history that neither allows for indifference to the plight of those suffering," it commented, "nor a refusal to search for a solution to the present crisis in the region".

© Independent Catholic News 2006