Hamas nixes UN’s flotilla probe

September 2, 2011 by occupiedpalestine 0 Comments

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PressTV – Thu Sep 1, 2011 10:11PM GMT

Hamas’ spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri

Hamas has dismissed the UN’s inquiry into the last year’s lethal Israeli assault against an aid flotilla, which was bound for the Tel Aviv-blockaded Gaza Strip.

On Thursday, the Palestinian resistance movement’s spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri said that the results of the investigation — some extracts of which have been published in the The New York Times — was ‘unjust and unbalanced,’ AFP reported.

“The UN report into the Israeli attack…will allow the [Israeli] occupier to shirk its responsibilities,” he said.

The probe, which was directed by the former New Zealand Prime Minister Geoffrey Palmer, is to be published on September 2.

It describes the Israeli aggression on the Turkish-led aid convoy as ‘excessive,’ but views Tel Aviv’s now-four-year-old all-out blockade of the coastal sliver as legal.

“Israel’s decision to board the vessels with such substantial force at a great distance from the blockade zone and with no final warning immediately prior to the boarding was excessive and unreasonable,” the report said.

“We have made it clear that we consider that Israel was entitled to impose the naval blockade. It follows that Israel was also entitled to enforce it,” it asserted.

Israeli naval commandos assaulted the six-ship civilian aid convoy known as the Freedom Flotilla on May 31, 2010, while it was carrying thousands of tons of humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip in the international waters in the Mediterranean.

Nine Turkish human rights activists, including a Turkish-American national, were slain and around 50 others injured during the attack, which resulted in major strain in Ankara’s ties with Tel Aviv.

MAB/HN

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