The head of a UN inquiry into last summer’s Israeli military offensive in Gaza, who sent the UN a resignation letter on Monday after Israeli allegations of pro-Palestinian bias, has said he received death threats during his time as chairman.
“I received lots of very aggressive, violent emails. I received death threats,” said William Schabas, a Canadian law professor, appointed last August by the head of the UN Human Rights Council to lead a three-member group looking into alleged war crimes during the offensive.
Schabas, who spoke to Middle East Eye by phone from London on Tuesday, said he wasn’t accusing any organisation or country in particular of threatening him, but that these kind of attacks came with the climate around such inquiries.
“It’s part of the bullying by people who don’t want inquiries, saying that if you dare to participate in an independent, impartial inquiry you will, one way or any another, pay a price for it,” said Schabas.
News of the resignation was welcomed in Israel, where top leaders had called his appointment a farce due to consultancy work he did for the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO).