BICOM

The publication of a long-postponed UN inquiry report on Israel’s operation to halt the Gaza-bound flotilla in 2010 has been delayed again, a UN spokesman said on Monday. ‘At this stage, the report is not complete,’ UN Spokesman Farhan Haq told reporters in New York. ‘The secretary-general does hope that the members of the panel will be able to work on coming to a consensus,’ he said.

The so-called Palmer report has been delayed repeatedly to allow for Israeli-Turkish rapprochement talks. Washington has been concerned by the rift between the two countries that had previously been strategic partners in an increasingly stormy Middle East. Israeli officials, citing advance copies of the report by a UN panel headed by former New Zealand prime minister Geoffrey Palmer, have said the document would vindicate Israel’s policy against the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip, but may be critical of Israel’s ‘disproportional use of power’ when boarding the ships.