A senior diplomat says the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) welcomes a UN committee decision to name experts to an international commission of inquiry into human rights violations and war crimes committed in Israel's onslaught against the Gaza Strip in July and August.
Iran currently holds the rotating presidency of NAM.
Hossein Dehqani, deputy ambassador to the UN, made the remarks at a UN meeting on decolonization, adding, "NAM members welcome the decision of the UN Human Rights Committee to form an investigation commission to probe human rights violations and war crimes committed by the Israeli regime in Gaza," the Fars news agency reported on Friday. He said, "NAM again condemns the Israeli army's offensive against the Palestinians in their deadly aggression in July and August," adding, "The condemnation is not just because of the high death toll of civilian Palestinians, but it is due to the fact that a large number of victims were women, children and the elderly and also the homelessness of some half a million people in Gaza."
He added, "Israeli constant airstrikes and attacks on homes, hospitals, Gaza's infrastructures, its only power plant, water reservoirs and the UN premises are considered not only disastrous, but an apparent violation of human rights." According to a UN statement issued in this regard, the independent team is tasked with investigating "all violations of international humanitarian law... in the context of the military operations conducted since 13 June 2014."
A month of war marked by Israeli airstrikes on Gaza killed over 2,000 Palestinians and devastated vast tracts of the densely populated Gaza.
The panel is to report by March 2015 to the UN Human Rights Council.
