The UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights in Geneva reported on Sunday evening that an independent High Level Fact-Finding Mission led by Archbishop Desmond Tutu (of South Africa) would be traveling to Gaza on 27 and 28 May – and entering from Egypt through the Rafah crossing.
The High Level Fact-Finding Mission to Beit Hanoun was established and authorized by the UN Human Rights Council after a Special Session in Geneva, following an IDF tank attack on two homes in the northern Gaza town of Beit Hanoun during an IDF operation against Palestinian militants just before dawn in November 2006 in which 19 persons were killed, including 7 children – most of them still sleeping.
After several weeks of cooling their heels in Geneva, the Mission was “postponed” in January 2007.
“There were several previous efforts to go, but they never came to fruition – they never got the necessary clearances, so the Mission was officially left in suspense”, one UN official said from Geneva.
“Israel wouldn’t give permission for the UN Mission, or Egypt either”, the UN official said. “The shift has been on the Egyptian side”.
This development comes as Egyptian-led negotiations are apparently nearing conclusion on some kind of truce between Israel and Hamas.
The Egyptian Embassy in Tel Aviv was asked for a comment, but has not yet replied.
“It was sorted out in the last couple of weeks, and everybody signed off on it over the past couple of days”, another UN official from Jerusalem told Al-Bayan on Monday.
Archbishop Tutu will be accompanied on this Mission by Professor Christine Chinkin, of the Centre for the Study of Human Rights at the London School of Economics.
A UN press release says that the Mission is “scheduled to hold a range of meetings in Gaza, including with survivors and witnesses of the attack on 8 November 2006”.
A more recent similar tragedy occurred in Beit Hanoun at the end of April this year, when a mother and her four children were killed while having breakfast. Palestinian eyewitnesses thought that these deaths had been caused by an IDF tank shell exploding beside the family home. But, an Israeli investigation asserted that in fact the Israeli Air Force had fired at a group of Palestinian militants carrying weapons, and that a secondary explosion of those weapons caused the blast that killed the young family.
Aryeh Mekel, spokesperson for the Israeli Foreign Ministry, expressed surprise to hear about the plans, and said he would check to see if anybody in the Foreign Ministry was aware of the imminent visit.
Asked about coordination, Mekel said: “We are not in Gaza … Do you think our soldiers would protect somebody in Gaza?”
Mr. Mekel later returned this reporter’s call, with this comment: “What we know is that Desmond Tutu was appointed by the Human Rights Council to investigate something that happened two years ago. Our position is that we will of course allow Desmond Tutu to enter Israel if he wants to do so — he’s a well-known personality, and he is welcome. But we will not cooperate with him if he intends to investigate this event of two years ago. The reasons is that the UN Human Rights Council has an unbalanced attitude toward Israel”.
In addition, Mr. Mekel said that “We are not aware that Desmond Tutu is in Cairo [n.b.,he may be arriving just today], and we have not heard of this thing [the Mission], apparently for a long time, the last time was about a year ago”.
Normally, however, coordination would at least assure that IDF forces who might carry out operations in Gaza during the period of the visit would be aware that a UN Mission would also be there.
Both UN officials contacted today said they were “not sure” how the coordination was being done”.
Presumably, the South African government would have made some kind of representation on behalf of Archbishop Tutu, and perhaps the British government might have done the same on behalf of Professor Chinkin.
The Fact-Finding Mission is meeting up today in Cairo, will be driving to Rafah on Tuesday, and hopes to spend Tuesday and Wednesday and early Thursday in Gaza, including a planned visit to meet survivors in Beit Hanoun. They will be leaving for Cairo on Thursday and flying out from Cairo on Friday.
Archbishop Tutu will formally report back to the Human Rights Council in Geneva during its September session. He has previously denounced, in speeches to the Human Rights Council, the foot-dragging by Israel on approval for this Mission.
However, he is also expected to give a press conference during his time in Gaza.
A great controversy arose out of remarks that Archbishop Tutu made to a conference in the United States in 2007, after which he was accused of anti-Semiitism. Following a detailed examination of a full transcript of his remarks, Jewish groups then denounced the hasty condemnation of Archbishop Tutu, and most of the effects were rescinded.
According to the transcript, what Archbishop Tutu said was: “My heart aches. I say why are our memories so short? Have our Jewish sisters and brothers forgotten the humiliation of wearing yellow arm bands with the Star of David? Have my Jewish sisters and brothers forgotten the collective punishment? The home demolitions? Have they forgotten their own history so soon? And have they turned their back on their profound noble and religious traditions? Have they forgotten that their God, our God, is a God who sides with the poor, the despised, the down trodden? That this is a moral universe? That they will never, they will never get true security and safety from the barrel of a gun? That true peace can ultimately be built only on justice and equity? We condemn the violence of suicide bombers. And if Arab children are taught to hate Jews, we condemn the corruption of young minds too. But we condemn equally unequivocally the violence of military incursions and reprisals that won’t let ambulances and medical personnel reach the injure; that wreak an unparalleled revenge, totally imbalanced, even with the Torah’s law of an eye for an eye – which was designed actually to restrict revenge to the perpetrator and perhaps those supporting him”.