- Palestine
- August 3, 2010
- 2 minutes read
Israel unwillingly accepts to let UN probe into its attack on Freedom Flotilla
OCCUPIED JERUSALEM, Israel reluctantly accepted to let a new UN committee to investigate its deadly attack on the Freedom Flotilla aid convoy in late May after strenuous attempts to undermine international efforts to probe the crime.
According to the Hebrew radio, Israel told the UN secretary-general and Turkey that it agreed in principle to let a UN committee to probe the incident, pointing that the investigation panel would be headed by former premier of New Zealand Geoffrey Palmer and include representatives of the UN, the US, Israel and Turkey.
It pointed out that Ankara did not give its final response on the composition of the investigation team.
Israel’s military attack on Freedom Flotilla claimed the lives of nine Turks and led to the injury of about 500 participants in the humanitarian mission, the thing which caused strong reactions worldwide demanding for a probe into what happened amid American and Israeli attempts to derail any efforts to find out the facts.
Israel also launched a scathing attack on the UN human rights council last month when the latter announced the formation of an investigation committee.
In a separate incident, Israel decided to train its naval forces to engage in face-to-face fighting in order to prepare them to deal with the passengers aboard the aid ships sent to the Gaza Strip.
The Maariv newspaper claimed Monday that the Israeli commandos have a military problem lying in their lack of experience in fighting face to face, so the Shin Bet decided to train them in this kind of fighting to avoid what happened during the attack on the Turkish aid ship.