Israel has told UN chief Ban Ki-moon it will reject a UN demand to carry out a probe into accusations it committed war crimes during the Gaza war, a minister said on Tuesday.
"Israel has no intention of creating a verification commission," Information and Diaspora Minister Yuli Edelstein told Israel public radio from New York a day after meeting the UN secretary general.
Edelstein, who was to present Israel's rebuttal to the so-called Goldstone report on Thursday, said he informed Ban of his country's intention during the meeting late Monday.
But Israeli Haaretz newspaper said Israel might agree to set up a limited inquiry to deflect some of the massive international criticism over its war that killed 1,400 Palestinians and 13 Israelis in three weeks just over one year ago.
Such a committee would review the Israeli army's internal investigations and examine whether there was any basis to one of the charges of a UN report that said the war was planned as punitive action against Gaza's civilians, the daily said.
Also Tuesday, eight leading Israeli human rights groups sent an open letter to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu urging the government to establish, without delay, an independent and impartial investigation mechanism to thoroughly examine the accusations raised regarding violations of international law during the last Israeli war on the Gaza Strip
Since it was released in September, Israel has sought to discredit the Goldstone report that accused it and Palestinian armed groups of having committed war crimes in the 22-day offensive that Israel launched on December 27, 2008 in response to rocket fire from the Hamas-run enclave.
In recent days, Israeli officials have sought to portray the 575-page report as anti-Semitic despite the fact it's author - South African judge and international war crimes prosecutor Richard Goldstone - is Jewish.
The UN report recommended its conclusions be referred to the International Criminal Court prosecutor in the Hague if Israel and Hamas rulers fail to carry out credible investigations within six months.
In November the UN General Assembly endorsed the report and called on both sides to carry out investigations "that are independent, credible and in conformity with international standards" by February 5.

Jordan Times/Ab