JERUSALEM (JTA) — Israel has rejected a United Nations proposal to establish an international commission to probe the deaths of nine activists on a Gaza-bound flotilla.
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Saturday night proposed a commission of inquiry headed by former New Zealand Prime Minister Geoffrey Palmer and including representatives from the United States, Turkey and Israel, according to reports.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told members of his Cabinet Sunday that he had rejected Ban’s proposal, Haaretz reported.
"I told the U.N. chief that establishing the facts must be conducted responsibly and objectively," Netanyahu said. "I am looking into other possibilities."
Netanyahu said he told Ban that any investigation also would need have a mandate to discover who organized, funded and equipped the members of extremist groups who boarded the Turkish ship Marmara. The groups’ members carried no identification.
