A spokesman for United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said Tuesday that the secretary general remains “hopeful” that the world body will approve an international inquiry into the Gaza flotilla incident – on top of Israel’s own domestic investigation – after it received overwhelming support in a closed Security Council meeting Tuesday.
“We are continuing to talk with all parties about an international inquiry, and we remain hopeful that Israel will accept that,” Farhan Haq, a spokesman for the secretary general, told POLITICO.
A diplomat with one Security Council member country said that 14 of 15 nations had expressed support for some form of panel established by the secretary general – rather than by a Security Council vote, which the United States could block – to investigate the deaths on a Turkish ship bound for Gaza. The U.S. was the sole nation not to support the measure in the closed session, the source said.
Earlier Tuesday, Palestinian U.N. representative Riyad Mansour expressed his support for “the secretary general’s decision to proceed with his idea of having an international investigation under his auspices.”
The U.S. position on the panel – amid intense support for it among U.N. members – has been to wait and see what Ban proposes.
“As we always do, we will work hard to make sure that Israel is not treated unfairly at the U.N.,” a U.S. official said.
Meanwhile, the U.N. will send to Gaza tons of aid supplies left in an Israeli port for two weeks since they were seized in the flotilla confrontation, the Israeli military said Tuesday.
Until now, Hamas, which rules Gaza, has refused to accept the aid in order to protest Israel’s three-year-old blockade. Hamas had no comment on the U.N. arrangement.