The chairman of a UN panel investigating possible war crimes in the 50-day Gaza conflict last year resigned on Monday, attributing the decision to Israeli accusations of personal bias that led to a formal inquiry over whether he should be removed.
The decision by William Schabas, a Canadian law professor who pledged to leave his “personal views at the door” when he undertook the Gaza inquiry in August last year, was conveyed to the UN Human Rights Council in a letter of resignation.
News of the resignation was welcomed in Israel, where top leaders had called his appointment a farce. They were particularly incensed over Schabas’ declaration a few years ago that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu would be his “favorite” choice as a defendant at the International Criminal Court.
Israeli Ambassador to the UN Ron Prosor equated the professor’s appointment with “choosing Count Dracula to run a blood bank.”
The Israelis filed a formal complaint last month with the president of the Human Rights Council demanding the ouster of Schabas, citing, among other things, consulting work he had done for the Palestine Liberation Organization in 2012. Schabas said the consulting represented “a tiny part” of his body of academic work.
However, Schabas’ letter of resignation on Monday stated that Human Rights Council members decided to ask UN lawyers to weigh in. That appears to have spurred his decision to resign.
“The Commission of Inquiry is at a decisive stage in its work,” Schabas wrote. “It has largely completed the task of gathering material and listening to victims and other witnesses, including experts. The work on the drafting of the report is beginning. I believe that it is difficult for the work to continue while a procedure is underway to consider whether the chair of the commission should be removed.”
Schabas, a professor of international law at Middlesex University in London, added in his letter that while he was not asked to detail his consultancy work when he was appointed, his views on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict had been well known. He said he had pledged to serve “with independence and impartiality.”
“This work in defense of human rights appears to have made me a huge target for malicious attacks which, if Israel’s complaint is to be taken at face value, will only intensify in the weeks to come,” he wrote.
Nearly 2,200 Palestinians, including more than 500 children, were killed, and 100,000 buildings damaged or destroyed, the UN said. On the Israeli side, six civilians and 67 soldiers were killed.
A fire caused by a burst gas pipe yesterday spread to several homes and sent a fireball soaring into the sky outside Malaysia’s largest city, injuring more than 100 people. The towering inferno near a gas station in Putra Heights outside Kuala Lumpur was visible for kilometers and lasted for several hours. It happened during a public holiday as Muslims, who are the majority in Malaysia, celebrate the second day of Eid al-Fitr. National oil company Petronas said the fire started at one of its gas pipelines at 8:10am and the affected pipeline was later isolated. Disaster management officials said shutting the
US Vice President J.D. Vance on Friday accused Denmark of not having done enough to protect Greenland, when he visited the strategically placed and resource-rich Danish territory coveted by US President Donald Trump. Vance made his comment during a trip to the Pituffik Space Base in northwestern Greenland, a visit viewed by Copenhagen and Nuuk as a provocation. “Our message to Denmark is very simple: You have not done a good job by the people of Greenland,” Vance told a news conference. “You have under-invested in the people of Greenland, and you have under-invested in the security architecture of this
Japan unveiled a plan on Thursday to evacuate around 120,000 residents and tourists from its southern islets near Taiwan within six days in the event of an “emergency”. The plan was put together as “the security situation surrounding our nation grows severe” and with an “emergency” in mind, the government’s crisis management office said. Exactly what that emergency might be was left unspecified in the plan but it envisages the evacuation of around 120,000 people in five Japanese islets close to Taiwan. China claims Taiwan as part of its territory and has stepped up military pressure in recent years, including
UNREST: The authorities in Turkey arrested 13 Turkish journalists in five days, deported a BBC correspondent and on Thursday arrested a reporter from Sweden Waving flags and chanting slogans, many hundreds of thousands of anti-government demonstrators on Saturday rallied in Istanbul, Turkey, in defence of democracy after the arrest of Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu which sparked Turkey’s worst street unrest in more than a decade. Under a cloudless blue sky, vast crowds gathered in Maltepe on the Asian side of Turkey’s biggest city on the eve of the Eid al-Fitr celebration which started yesterday, marking the end of Ramadan. Ozgur Ozel, chairman of the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), which organized the rally, said there were 2.2 million people in the crowd, but
RSS