Israel, Citing ‘Bias,’ Won’t Cooperate With UN Rights Team

GENEVA (AP) — Israel on Thursday formally announced it would not cooperate with a special commission formed by the United Nations’ top human rights body to investigate alleged abuses against Palestinians, saying the probe and its chairwoman were unfairly biased against Israel.

The decision, delivered in a scathing letter to the commission’s head, Navi Pillay, further strained what already is a tense relationship between Israel and the U.N.-backed Human Rights Council in Geneva.

“It is obvious to my country, as it should be to any fair-minded observer, that there is simply no reason to believe that Israel will receive reasonable, equitable and non-discriminatory treatment from the Council, or from this Commission of Inquiry,” said the letter, signed by Meirav Eilon Shahar, Israel’s ambassador to the U.N. and international organizations in Geneva.

The council established the three-person investigative commission last May, days after an 11-day war between Israel and Hamas militants in the Gaza Strip. Over 260 Palestinians, including scores of women and children, were killed in the fighting. Fourteen people died in Israel.

At the time, the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, Michelle Bachelet, said that Israeli actions, including airstrikes in civilian areas, might have constituted war crimes.