UN human rights investigators will travel to the Middle East this weekend to examine the three-week offensive Israel launched in Gaza last December, a UN spokesman said today.
It was not yet clear whether the four-member team headed by South African jurist Richard Goldstone had been granted entry into Israel or would travel to Gaza through Egypt, spokesman Rolando Gomez told a news briefing in Geneva.
"I understand that the mission is actually leaving over the weekend and will be in the region next week," Mr Gomez said when asked about the investigation.
"Justice Goldstone has written repeatedly to the Israeli government and hopes to receive a positive response. Beyond that I am not authorised to say anything more," he said.
Mr Goldstone said earlier this month that he hoped to visit Gaza and southern Israel and hold public hearings on whether war crimes may have been committed in the December-January conflict.
He said at the time that Israel had not officially responded to the team's request to enter the country, and that the investigators were prepared to enter the coastal strip through the Rafah crossing in Egypt if necessary.
According to a Palestinian rights group, 1,417 people including 926 civilians were killed during Israel's December 27th-January 18th offensive in the Hamas-ruled territory of 1.5 million people.
Israel lost 10 soldiers and three civilians in the fighting, which it launched with the declared aim of halting cross-border rocket fire by militants. It says 1,166 Palestinians were killed, 295 of them civilians.
International human rights groups have called for a credible independent investigation of the conduct of Israeli troops in Gaza, looking at the destruction of several Gazan residential areas and firing artillery shells containing white phosphorous which can cause severe burns.
Israel says an internal probe by its armed forces last month found no evidence of serious misconduct by its troops.
Reuters