UN probe hearings of alleged Israeli rights abuses open in Geneva

Public hearings of alleged Israeli human rights violation opened at the United Nations in Geneva on Monday. Israel has slammed these as "sham trials".

The independent Commission of Inquiry, established by the U.N. top human rights body last year, plans five days of hearings which it says will be impartial and examine the allegations of both Israelis and Palestinian authorities.

Israel has alleged that these hearings have an "anti-Israel" agenda and have been convened with little notice.

"This (COI) and the convening of these sham trials shame and undermine the Human Rights Council," it said in a statement issued by its diplomatic mission in Geneva.

A UN human rights office has previously dismissed allegations of bias and said Israel had not cooperated with the commission's work.

The focus of the first set of hearings will be on the closure orders of a number of Palestinian organisations by Israel in August and the killing of the Palestinian-American reporter Shireen Abu Akleh in May.

The UN rights office has said its findings suggest that she was killed by Israeli forces while an Israeli investigation concluded she was likely to have been unintentionally shot by an Israeli soldier.

Three representatives from shuttered Palestinian NGOs will testify.

The UN Human Rights Council or its hearings do not have any legal power themselves. However, investigations by council are often used as evidence before national or international courts.

Besides Israel, its ally the United States has criticised the UN Human Rights Council for what it has described as a "chronic bias" against Israel. It quit the body over this in 2018 and only fully rejoined this year.

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