UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon informed the UN Security Council on Monday that he intends to appoint Martin as head of a five-member commission to carry out investigations into Israeli attacks on UN facilities in the Gaza Strip in the Palestinian Territory last month.
French news agency AFP has quoted Palestinian UN observer Ryad Mansour as saying that Secretary-General Ban told the 15-member council during the closed-door consultations that he would want to appoint Martin to head the panel.Ban said the panel "would be composed of four individuals and a member of the (UN) secretariat" and would be "headed by Ian Martin," the Palestinian observer told journalists in the UN Headquarters in New York.
Mansour described Ban´s move as a "positive and responsive development, a step in the right direction of investigating crimes committed by Israel", according to AFP.
Ban had demanded a full explanation from Israel last month after its forces struck several UN facilities in Gaza, including a compound of the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), and UN-run schools, during a 22-day military onslaught to stop rocket firing by Palestinian militants.
UNRWA, which was responsible for feeding 900,000 Palestinian refugees in Gaza, lifted on Monday its suspension of aid supplies after Hamas militants returned all the aid it had stolen from the UN storehouse last week, according to the UN News Center. UNRWA Director of Operations in Gaza John Ging said Hamas had returned all the aid stolen on two occasions last week, including 300 tons of food, and assured the Agency that there would not be a recurrence, a condition UNRWA had demanded to resume its import operations.
The Israeli offensive killed more than 1,300 Palestinians, more than half of them civilians, and left some 5,400 wounded and 14,000 homes razed. On the Israeli side, three civilians and 10 soldiers were killed in combat and by rocket fire.
A British national, Martin was in Nepal since May 2006, first as the head of the UN Office of theHigh Commissioner for Human Rights and later as the Special Representative of the Secretary-General in Nepal and UNMIN head until last week.
A former Secretary General of the Amnesty International, Martin also undertook a troubleshooting assignment as the Secretary-General´s Special Representative in East Timor. He has also served in peacekeeping or human rights missions in Haiti, Rwanda, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Ethiopia/Eritrea.
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