Desmond Tutu, the South African Nobel laureate, is to lead a UN fact-finding mission to investigate the killing of 19 Palestinians in their homes in Beit Hanoun earlier this month.
The United Nation Human Rights Council said the mission would report back by mid-December.
Artillery bombardment
The UN Human Rights Council voted on November 15 to set up the fact-finding mission into the deaths during an Israeli artillery bombardment.
"Thirty-two countries in the 47-member Council, mainly from Asia, Africa and the Middle East, voted for the resolution setting up the mission" Send us your viewsThe former Anglican Archbishop chaired the South African Truth and Reconciliation after the end of the apartheid regime.
"Thirty-two countries in the 47-member Council, mainly from Asia, Africa and the Middle East, voted for the resolution setting up the mission"
Send us your views
Thirty-two countries in the 47-member Council, mainly from Asia, Africa and the Middle East, voted for the resolution setting up the mission.
Eight countries, including Canada and European nations such as Britain and Germany, opposed the move.
Six nations, including France, Switzerland and Japan, abstained.
Nineteen Palestinians were killed on November 18 in the Israeli shelling of private homes in the northern Gaza town of Beit Hanun, which Israel blamed on a "technical malfunction".