H.R. groups: Ban Ki-Moon ignores Palestinian blood in Gaza

Five Palestinian human rights groups have accused Tuesday the secretary-general of the UN Ban Ki-Moon of violating the charter of his organization after he advanced political considerations over the lives of thousands of Palestinian civilians killed and wounded with IOF troops” bullets during the war on Gaza last January.

In an open letter they addressed to Ki-Moon, the five Palestinian organizations warned that the way the UN secretary-general deals with the UN fact-finding committee was inappropriate despite the huge destruction inflicted on the infrastructure of the tiny Gaza Strip as a result of the Israeli invasion, and could undermine the legitimacy of the entire institution.

The Palestinian legal groups also deplored Ki-Moon”s appreciation of the Israeli occupation authority for “facilitating” the entry of the committee into Gaza, explaining that Ki-Moon”s remarks could be misunderstood and give legitimacy to the repressive Israeli siege on the 1.5 million Palestinians living in the Strip that resulted on tragic human conditions there.

They said that such statements would preempt any discussion in the UN Security Council over the Israeli carnage in Gaza that killed 1,500 Palestinians and wounded more than 5,000 others, the great majority of them civilians.

“The unhealthy statements of Moon, and his admiration of the Israeli cooperation indeed harms the position of the secretary-general in the first place, and harms the victims that the secretariat-general is presumed to represent”, the five Palestinian legal institutions confirmed in their open letter to Ki-Moon.

But the five groups namely: The Palestinian human rights center, the Dhameer institution that caters for human rights and prisoners, the Dhameer foundation for human rights, the Mizan center for human rights, and Defense for Children International- Palestine Section underlined that a number of the incidents documented by the committee could be tantamount to war crimes, adding that they also have documented many Israeli crimes against humanity in the tiny Strip.

In this regard, the five groups highlighted the importance to hold Israeli war criminals accountable for their heinous crimes, stressing that the attempts by Ki-Moon to block such accountability could nourish the cycle of violence in the region.