UN votes to send war crimes probe to Gaza

The UN Human Rights Council voted today to send a team of international war crimes investigators to probe the deadly shootings of Gaza protesters by Israeli forces.

The UN's top human rights body voted through a resolution calling on the council to "urgently dispatch an independent, international commission of inquiry" -- the UN rights council's highest-level of investigation.

Only two of the council's 47 members, the United States and Australia, voted against the resolution, while 29 voted in favour and 14 abstained, including Britain, Switzerland and Germany.

The text said the team should investigate all alleged violations and abuses... in the context of the military assaults on large scale civilian protests that began on 30 March 2018, ... including those that may amount to war crimes."
He said, "some of the demonstrators threw Molotov cocktails, used slingshots to throw stones, flew burning kites into Israel and attempted to use wire-cutters against the two fences between Gaza and Israel."
But he added: "these actions alone do not appear to constitute the imminent threat to life or deadly injury which could justify the use of lethal force."