ISRAEL HAS decided to co-operate with the United Nations investigation into the naval raid on the Gaza-bound aid flotilla, in which nine Turkish citizens were killed in clashes with Israeli commandos on May 31st this year.
Informing UN secretary general Ban Ki-moon of yesterday’s security cabinet decision, prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu said Israel had nothing to hide.
“The opposite is true,” he said, adding that it was in “Israel’s national interest to ensure that the factual truth regarding the flotilla incident would be exposed for the world to see”.
The security cabinet has also decided to allow the UN panel access to material gathered by two Israeli committees conducting separate probes into the incident.
The UN chief welcomed the Israeli decision, calling it an “unprecedented development”. Mr Ban said he had “engaged in intensive consultation with the leaders of Israel and Turkey on the setting up of a panel of inquiry on the flotilla incident”, adding he was looking forward to the co-operation of the various parties.
The UN investigation will be headed by former New Zealand prime minister Geoffrey Palmer, with outgoing Colombian president Alvaro Uribe serving as his deputy. The UN panel, which will also include representatives from Israel and Turkey, will begin working next week and aims to present its initial progress report by mid-September.
Senior Israeli jurists have been approached to participate in the UN inquiry.
Mr Ban expressed the hope that the UN inquiry would help to prevent similar incidents in the future and would also contribute to improving the strained relations between Israel and Turkey.
Next week Mr Netanyahu, defence minister Ehud Barak and army chief of staff Lieut Gen Gabi Ashkenazi are due to testify before the Israeli inquiry into the flotilla incident.
Last month a separate military investigation concluded that intelligence and operational errors occurred in the interception of the flotilla.
Israel hopes that by participating in the UN inquiry, the separate committee appointed by the United Nations human rights council in Geneva will become irrelevant. Israeli officials were concerned that the Geneva investigation would be highly critical of Israeli actions, as was the investigation into the Gaza war headed by retired South African jurist Richard Goldstone, which accused Israel of committing war crimes.
Earlier yesterday, a Jordanian taxi driver was killed when a rocket landed in the Red sea resort of Aqaba, close to the InterContinental hotel. Four other people were slightly hurt. Another rocket landed in open space in the adjacent Israeli resort of Eilat, with another three projectiles landing in the Red Sea.
Egyptian security officials denied Israeli claims that the rockets were fired from the Egyptian Sinai, just to the west, saying the border was heavily patrolled to prevent hostile acts by Islamic radicals. According to the Egyptians, the rockets were fired from Jordanian territory.
Both Eilat and Aqaba are heavily reliant on the tourist trade and there were concerns in both resorts that the rocket attack could deter holidaymakers at the height of the summer season.
The rocket barrage came hours after an explosion destroyed the home of a senior Hamas commander in the Gaza refugee camp of Deir el-Balah.
Some 30 people were injured in the explosion but Palestinian sources said Alaa al-Danaf, a commander of the Hamas military wing, survived.
The blast came only a day after Mr Netanyahu warned that Israel would hold Hamas accountable for recent rocket attacks from Gaza, but an Israeli military source said Israeli forces were not responsible for the blast.