Palestine upset over India's abstention from anti-Israel resolution at UNHRC

New Delhi decided to abstain from voting in order to strike a balance between its traditional support to Palestine and its growing relations with Israel

Palestine has conveyed its disappointment after India abstained from voting at the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) on a resolution against Israel.

External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar received a letter from Palestinian Foreign Minister Riad Malki, who wrote that India’s abstention on the resolution against Israel had gone against the human rights of “all peoples”. He also wrote that Government of India had missed an opportunity to join the international community at a turning point, which was “both crucial and long overdue, on the path to accountability, justice and peace”.

The UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) on May 27 last adopted a resolution on ensuring respect for international human rights law and international humanitarian law in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and in Israel. The resolution paved the way for the UNHRC to establish an international commission of inquiry to investigate violations of international humanitarian law and all alleged violations and abuses of international human rights law leading up to and since April 13 this year and all underlying root causes of recurrent tensions between Israel and Palestine.

Read | What would a 'change' coalition mean for Israel?

The resolution was adopted at the end of a one-day special session of the UNHRC on the “grave human rights situation in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem”, with 24 members voting in favour of it and nine against it.

New Delhi apparently decided to abstain from voting in order to strike a balance between its traditional support for the cause of Palestine and its growing relations with Israel.

Malki wrote to Jaishankar that the resolution was not an aberration to the Human Rights Council. It was the by-product of extensive multilateral consultations, thorough investigations into and reporting on grave violations of human rights by Israel. “Therefore, your abstention stifles the important work of Human Rights Council at advancing human rights for all peoples, including those of the Palestinian people

The hostility between Israel and Palestine escalated over the past few months, reaching a flashpoint on May 6 and triggering aerial strikes and counter strikes by the Hamas from Gaza Strip and the Israel Defence Force. Soumya Santhosh, who hailed from Kerala in India but worked as a caregiver in Israel, was among the ones killed by the rockets fired by the Hamas.

“The indiscriminate rocket firings from Gaza targeting the civilian population in Israel, which we have condemned, and the retaliatory airstrikes into Gaza in the last two weeks have caused immense suffering- and resulted in deaths, including an Indian national—a caregiver in the Israeli city of Ashkelon,” India’s Permanent Representative to the UN offices in Geneva, said during the debate over the resolution.