The UN-commissioned Palmer report into Israel’s 2010 attack that killed nine activists on board a Gaza aid flotilla has drawn heavy criticism from the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, the Arab League, and human rights organizations.
The report, which was disseminated by media on Thursday, concluded that the Israeli navy used excessive force while seizing the flotilla en route to the Gaza Strip. However, it deemed Israel’s maritime blockade of the Strip as legal.
In a statement on Sunday, OIC secretary-general, Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu said the report by the investigating committee, headed by former New Zealand Prime Minister Geoffrey Palmer, “failed to reflect an objective and unbiased position,” as it deemed Israel’s siege of the Gaza Strip as legal.
“The OIC cannot accept any report that would whitewash Israel’s attack on the humanitarian flotilla and condone Israel’s illegal blockade against the Palestinian civilians,” he said.
In a separate statement, the Arab League’s deputy secretary general in charge of the occupied Palestinian and Arab territories Mohammed Sabih said the report could be taken by Israel as a pretext to continue its blockade of the Gaza Strip.
He said that the report harms the reputation of the United Nations, adding that it is against the international law to impose a siege on a country because of political reasons, and that the siege is banned under collective punishment laws covered by the Geneva Conventions.
The Palestinian Human Rights Center also condemned the UN report, accusing the committee that UN secretary general Ban Ki-moon appointed to hold investigations that led to it was in fact a distinctly political panel of investigators, what led to purely political results.
The PHRC ruled out that legal opinions according to international law could conclude that Israel’s siege on Gaza would be legal.
The PHRC also accused the panel of not being professional, also saying that it opposed the legal views of various experts of international law and UN human rights bodies, such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, all of which consider the siege illegal.
