United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said on Monday that he is setting up a commission of inquiry to investigate Israel's shelling of U.N. facilities in Gaza which lead to extensive damage and multiple deaths. The commission will be headed by Briton Ian Martin, a longtime human rights activist who most recently was Ban's special envoy to Nepal and before that was head of Amnesty International. “I have initiated steps to establish a U.N. board of inquiry into incidents involving death and damage at U.N. premises in Gaza,” Ban told reporters at U.N headquarters in New York. The board of inquiry will include legal advisors and military experts and will begin work immediately, added Ban, who said he expects a report from the team within a month. The U.N. chief said the report may lead to a war crimes investigation but that any such course of action must be initiated at a national level. “The report will first of all be examined by the United Nations and myself and future course of action will have to be determined by myself and the United Nations… If there are any serious allegations of violations of international humanitarian law then there must be thorough investigations but these issues should be dealt with by a proper judiciary at a national level,” Ban said. Several U.N. buildings were damaged during Israel's 22-day offensive in December and January. On January 15 Israeli shells that U.N. officials said contained incendiary white phosphorus demolished a warehouse in a Gaza compound belonging to the U.N. Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA). Shells also hit a vocational training center there, wounding three people. Earlier, on January 6, Israeli fire killed more than 40 people just outside an UNRWA school in Gaza. UNRWA is currently conducting its own investigation into the shelling.
