UN backs debate on Goldstone’s Gaza report amid “Israeli” fury

Ban\'s spokeswoman, Michele Montas, said on Monday that the UN chief pledged the acting Palestinian Authority chief, Mahmoud Abbas, his support for the matter during a Sunday telephone conversation.

A United Nations inquiry, led by former South African Judge Richard Goldstone, detailed what investigators called "Israeli" actions "amounting to war crimes, possibly crimes against humanity," during "Israel's" winter offensive against the Hamas-ruled Gaza.

The report says "Israel" targeted a mosque at prayer time, killing 15 people, and shelled a Gaza City house where soldiers had forced Palestinian civilians to assemble. These attacks constituted war crimes, the report says.

The probe also found that "Israel" violated international humanitarian law in several ways. Dozens of Palestinian policemen were killed at the start of the Gaza onslaught when "Israel" bombed their stations. The security agents were not involved in the hostilities and should have been treated as civilians. Palestinians, in addition, were used as human shields and were forced to walk ahead of the "Israeli" soldiers searching civilian neighborhoods.

"Israeli" authorities, meanwhile, have branded the investigation as 'not an independent or professional' one, but a collection of claims brought forward by Hamas to the members of the UN fact-finding mission.
In addition, Not only did "Israeli" Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu describe the United Nations Goldstone report -that found evidence of possible war crimes by "Israel" in last winter's Operation Cast Lead on the Gaza Strip- as 'distorted' as he claimed "Israel" acted in self-defense in a speech opening the winter session of parliament on Monday, but also Netanyahu vowed never to allow Israeli leaders or soldiers to stand trial on war crimes charges over their actions during the military offensive in the Strip, furiously denouncing the Goldstone report.

Thousands of Palestinians were killed during three weeks of "Israel's" land, sea and air assault, during Operation Cast Lead, in the impoverished coastal sliver. The offensive also inflicted USD 1.6 billion of damage upon Gaza's economy.