[ Richard Falk, the UN’s special rapporteur on human rights in the Palestinian territories, criticized the bureaucratic process the Goldstone report has been going through. ]
A United Nations expert warns of efforts to “bury” a report by the world body’s fact-finding commission on the Israeli offensive against the Gaza Strip last January.
Ahead of a Friday vote in the UN General Assembly on a proposed extension for Israeli and Palestinian authorities to investigate the Gaza war crimes charges, Richard Falk criticized the bureaucratic process the report has been going through.
“I think its part of the wider effort basically to bury the recommendations of the Goldstone report, unnecessarily delaying the implementation of its recommendations,” the UN’s special rapporteur on human rights in the Palestinian territories told Ma’an news agency.
He said the prolonged process made the UN less likely to hold accused war criminals accountable and that the delays would “remove the reality of what happened in Gaza from the collective memory of world society.”
A UN Human Rights Council commission led by South African prosecutor Richard Goldstone looked into Israel’s three-week onslaught against Gaza in December 2008 and January 2009 and the deaths of more than 1,400 Palestinians, mostly civilians, and 13 Israelis.