Israel's conflict with the UN Human Rights Council continued this quarter, despite a letter (6/3) from Israel's UNHRC Amb. Eviatar Maner, expressing his govt.'s intention to restore ties with the council. The letter spoke of “positively resolv[ing] all outstanding issues in Israel's complex relationship with the Human Rights Council and its mechanisms,” which media reports suggested that Israel expected assurances from the council that it would henceforth be treated “fairly.” Days later, however, UNHRC investigator Prof. Richard Falk presented (6/10) his latest report in Geneva that dealt, among other things, with “collective punishment” imposed by Israel on the Gaza Strip and called for an inquiry into the torture of Palestinians in Israeli detention. Israel and the U.S. boycotted the debate, and in the aftermath of the presentation, the international law prof. was denounced for his alleged bias in separate statements issued by Israel, the U.S., and the EU.
Other UN agency officials also drew attention to the situation in the Gaza Strip, as well to the urgency of moving the Israeli-Palestinian peace process forward. On 7/23, for example, Robert Serry, UN Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process, warned that the Gaza Strip was facing a serious shortage in fuel and basic building materials due to border crossing restrictions and the Egyptian military's crackdown on smuggling tunnels. Serry also warned (5/22) that the international community would be mistaken to ignore the Palestinian-Israeli conflict because of events in other parts of the region, such as Syria.