On 23 July 2010, the U.N. Human Rights Council appointed the members of a fact finding mission established to "investigate violations of international law, including international humanitarian and human rights law, resulting from the Israeli attacks on the flotilla of ships carrying humanitarian assistance [to Gaza]."[1]
The Human Rights Council originally called for the establishment of the fact-finding mission in a resolution that it adopted on 2 June 2010. Accepted by a vote of 32 to 3 with 9 abstentions, the resolution opened with a condemnation of the "outrageous attack" by Israeli forces against the “humanitarian flotilla,” which resulted in the killing and injury of civilians. The resolution also called on Israel, as the occupying power in the Gaza Strip, to release all detained persons and enable them to return to their homelands, to release all of the materials that had been confiscated, to immediately lift the siege on Gaza, and to ensure the unimpeded provision of humanitarian assistance to the Gaza Strip.
The members of the fact finding mission who were appointed by the President of the Human Rights Council are: Judge Karl T. Hudson-Phillips from Trinidad and Tobago, a former Judge at the International Criminal Court (2003 – 2007); Sir Desmond de Silva from the United Kingdom, who served as Chief Prosecutor of the UN-backed Special Court for Sierra Leone in 2005, and Mary Shanthi Dairiam from Malaysia, formerly a member of the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (2005 – 2008).
The resolution that established the fact finding mission indicated that the mission would report its findings to the Human Rights Council in its fifteenth session, which will begin in September 2010. However, it is unlikely that Israel will cooperate with this fact finding mission, especially given the existence of a parallel Israeli investigation process that includes international supervision.[2]