UN human rights chief backs Goldstone report

Israeli and Palestinian leaders should launch investigations of alleged war crimes in Gaza to help rebuild trust and support peace, the UN high commissioner for human rights said on Thursday.

At the opening of a UN Human Rights Council meeting on the issue, Navi Pillay said that all sides of the Middle East conflict were continuing to violate international law and voiced concern that transgressors are being left unpunished.

"A culture of impunity continues to prevail in the occupied territories and in Israel," she told the 47-member body, calling for "impartial, independent, prompt and effective investigations into reported violations of human rights and humanitarian law."

In a special session due to stretch into Friday, Geneva envoys met to consider a resolution that chastises Israel for failing to cooperate with the investigation headed by Justice Richard Goldstone into Operation Cast Lead in Gaza.

In the report circulated last month, Goldstone's investigators accused both Israel and Hamas of war crimes in Gaza, but were overall more critical of Israel than Hamas. Israel has rejected the charges in the report.

Israel's ambassador to the UN in Geneva, Aharon Leshno Yaar, said the Human Rights Council resolution, drafted by the Palestinians with Egypt, Nigeria, Pakistan and Tunisia, on behalf of non-aligned, African, Islamic and Arab nations, threatened to "set back hopes for peace".

The text calls for the UN General Assembly to consider the Goldstone report and for UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to review Israel's adherence to it.

The rights council agreed during its last regular session to postpone discussion on the Gaza report after Washington applied pressure aimed at getting the Middle East peace process back on track. But Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas came under sharp criticism for agreeing to the delay, leading to the request for a special session on the topic.

The resolution "strongly condemns all policies and measures taken by Israel, the occupying power, including those limiting access of Palestinians to their properties and holy sites" and calls on Israel to stop digging and excavation work around the Al Aqsa Mosque as well as other Christian and Islamic holy sites.

In her speech, Pillay cited concern about the restrictions on Palestinians wishing to enter Al Aqsa and expressed "dismay" about the Israeli blockade of Gaza that she said "severely undermines the rights and welfare of the population there."

Washington joined the rights council earlier this year, vowing to change the UN body that the United States and Israel have criticised as anti-Israeli. Developing states often vote together to criticise Israel at the council, in what critics say is a tactic to divert attention from abuses elsewhere.