Jerusalem - Israel Friday rejected an Arab-backed UN General Assembly resolution, giving it three months to launch an independent, credible investigation into last winter's Gaza war. The resolution, adopted by the international body with a 114-18 vote on Thursday, endorsed a UN Human Rights Council report on the Gaza offensive, and ordered Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to send the report on to the Security Council for debate and a vote.
The General Assembly adopted the report's recommendations that both Israel and the radical Hamas movement ruling Gaza should be brought before the International Criminal Court, unless they launch serious probes of their own into "strong evidence" that both committed war crimes during the three-week offensive.
However, Israel charged that the large number of abstentions (44), combined with the 18 member states who voted against, meant that the Arab-drafted resolution lacked the support of a "moral majority."
"Israel rejects the resolution of the UN General Assembly, which is completely detached from realities on the ground that Israel must face," the country's Foreign Ministry said in a statement sent to journalists after midnight Thursday.
The statement claimed that Israel's military during the Gaza war had "demonstrated higher military and moral standards than each and every one of this resolution's instigators."
"Israel, like any other democratic nation, maintains the right to self-defense, and, as was witnessed in recent days, will continue to act to protect the lives of its citizens from the threat of international terrorism," it said.
The report adopted by the General Assembly was written by a fact-finding mission into the Gaza offensive, headed by South African judge Richard Goldstone.
