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Leading law conference drops UN Israel investigator after Hamas attack
(New York Jewish Week) – A United Nations official leading an investigation into Israel was dropped from the schedule of a prominent international law conference in New York City, where she was due to receive an outstanding achievement award and deliver a keynote address.
The investigator, Navi Pillay, is a former U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights and currently heads the U.N. Human Rights Council’s Commission of Inquiry into the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. She was slated to receive an Outstanding Achievement Award and speak at International Law Weekend, a gathering hosted from Oct. 19 through 21 by the International Law Association’s U.S. branch.
Last month, however, dozens of centrist and right-wing Jewish groups protested the decision to honor Pillay, signing onto a letter urging law firms to drop their sponsorship of the event. The letter accused Pillay of working “to further a demonstrably discriminatory agenda against the Jewish people and the State of Israel.”
She will still receive the award, but in another setting, and will deliver her speech via webinar at a later date, according to an email the American branch of the law association sent to its board following what it called an “emergency meeting” held Oct. 11, in the wake of Hamas’ attack on Israel and the subsequent war.
According to the email, the award “will not be withdrawn,” and Pillay is listed as this year’s recipient on the association’s website. The email said the conference had attracted “significant attention and controversy” for the group and the event’s sponsors. The decision to “decouple” the award from the conference was made “both out of sensitivity to the outbreak of hostilities over the weekend and due to security concerns for Judge Navi Pillay and others participating.”
Pillay’s name was on the conference program a few days before Hamas’ Oct. 7 invasion of Israel, according to an archived web page. Her name does not appear on the current version of the program.
The International Law Association has 63 branches and more than 4,800 members, according to its website. The International Law Weekend, hosted by the association’s American branch, is one of the world’s leading annual conferences on international law. The association’s American branch and Pillay’s U.N. commission did not respond to requests for comment, and the association made no public statement regarding her removal from the program.
Four prominent law firms, including two headquartered in New York, were also removed from the conference’s list of sponsors ahead of the event, as was Yeshiva University’s Cardozo School of Law. In their letter protesting the event, the coalition of Jewish groups had asked three of the firms — Debevoise & Plimpton; Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher; and White & Case — to cut ties with the conference due to Pillay’s participation. The fourth firm was Winston & Strawn. The firms and Y.U.’s law school did not respond to requests for comment.
Israel, the United States, Jewish groups and other countries have accused Pillay’s commission and the Human Rights Council of bias against Israel. And Pillay has long been a bête noire for pro-Israel groups. As the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights from from September 2008 though August 2014, she often criticized Israel’s actions against Gaza, drawing rebuke from more than 100 members of Congress. The U.N. Human Rights Council and General Assembly both condemn Israel more than any other country.
Pillay’s Commission of Inquiry overwhelmingly blames Israel for its conflict with the Palestinians. Her recent reports, issued before Oct. 7, have not described Hamas as a terror group and rarely mention Israeli terror victims. The commission’s report released a year ago did not mention Hamas at all. Hamas applauded the commission last year.
One member of the three-person investigation, Miloon Kothari, said last year that the “Jewish lobby” controls social media and questioned why Israel was allowed membership in the U.N. Pillay defended Kothari, saying the comments had been “taken out of context.” After the incident, Pillay dismissed charges of antisemitism against the commission as “lies” and a diversion.
Pillay also oversaw the so-called Goldstone report into Israel’s military operation in Gaza in 2008-2009, which accused Israel of war crimes, including deliberately targeting civilians. The report’s lead author, Richard Goldstone, later retracted allegations made in the contentious report, but Pillay has defended the investigation and continues to cite it in her reports for the Commission of Inquiry.
Last year, Goldstone received the award that Pillay is receiving this year. A co-author of the Goldstone report, Christine Chinkin, is the chair of the International Law Association. Last year, Jewish groups criticized the conference for holding a panel on apartheid featuring several harsh critics of Israel.
Following the Oct. 7 attack, the commission said it was collecting evidence of war crimes committed by “all sides,” criticized “armed groups” from Gaza for killing civilians and condemned Israel’s response.
Pillay delivered her latest report, which was written before the current war, to the General Assembly on Tuesday. The report blames Israeli actions in East Jerusalem for Hamas rocket attacks, and criticizes Israel for taking military action against the terror group. The report was delivered on the same day that Israeli officials called for the resignation of U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres after he said Hamas’ attack “did not happen in a vacuum.”
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The post Leading law conference drops UN Israel investigator after Hamas attack appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Security Warning to Israelis Vacationing Abroad Ahead of holidays
A passenger arrives to a terminal at Ben Gurion international airport before Israel bans international flights, January 25, 2021. REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun
i24 News – Ahead of the Jewish High Holidays, Israel’s National Security Council (NSC) published the latest threat assessment to Israelis abroad from terrorist groups to the public on Sunday, in order to increase the Israeli public’s awareness of the existing terrorist threats around the world and encourage individuals to take preventive action accordingly.
The NSC specified that the warning is an up-to-date reflection of the main trends in the activities of terrorist groups around the world and their impact on the level of threat posed to Israelis abroad during these times, but the travel warnings and restrictions themselves are not new.
“As the Gaza war continues and in parallel with the increasing threat of terrorism, the National Security Headquarters stated it has recognized a trend of worsening and increasing violent antisemitic incidents and escalating steps by anti-Israel groups, to the point of physically harming Israelis and Jews abroad. This is in light of, among other things, the anti-Israel narrative and the negative media campaign by pro-Palestinian elements — a trend that may encourage and motivate extremist elements to carry out terrorist activities against Israelis or Jews abroad,” the statement read.
“Therefore, the National Security Bureau is reinforcing its recommendation to the Israeli public to act with responsibility during this time when traveling abroad, to check the status of the National Security Bureau’s travel warnings (before purchasing tickets to the destination,) and to act in accordance with the travel warning recommendations and the level of risk in the country they are visiting,” it listed, adding that, as illustrated in the past year, these warnings are well-founded and reflect a tangible and valid threat potential.
The statement also emphasized the risk of sharing content on social media networks indicating current or past service in the Israeli security forces, as these posts increase the risk of being marked by various parties as a target. “Therefore, the National Security Council recommends that you do not upload to social networks, in any way, content that indicates service in the security forces, operational activity, or similar content, as well as real-time locations.”
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Israel Intensifies Gaza City Bombing as Rubio Arrives
Displaced Palestinians, fleeing northern Gaza due to an Israeli military operation, move southward after Israeli forces ordered residents of Gaza City to evacuate to the south, in the central Gaza Strip September 14, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Mahmoud Issa
Israeli forces destroyed at least 30 residential buildings in Gaza City and forced thousands of people from their homes, Palestinian officials said, as US Secretary of State Marco Rubio arrived on Sunday to discuss the future of the conflict.
Israel has said it plans to seize the city, where about a million Palestinians have been sheltering, as part of its declared aim of eliminating the terrorist group Hamas, and has intensified attacks on what it has called Hamas’ last bastion.
The group’s political leadership, which has engaged in on-and-off negotiations on a possible ceasefire and hostage release deal, was targeted by Israel in an airstrike in Doha on Tuesday in an attack that drew widespread condemnation.
Qatar will host an emergency Arab-Islamic summit on Monday to discuss the next moves. Rubio said Washington wanted to talk about how to free the 48 hostages – of whom 20 are believed to be still alive – still held by Hamas in Gaza and rebuild the coastal strip.
“What’s happened, has happened,” he said. “We’re gonna meet with them (the Israeli leadership). We’re gonna talk about what the future holds,” Rubio said before heading to Israel where he will stay until Tuesday.
ABRAHAM ACCORDS AT RISK
He was expected to visit the Western Wall Jewish prayer site in Jerusalem on Sunday with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and hold talks with him during the visit.
US officials described Tuesday’s strike on the territory of a close US ally as a unilateral escalation that did not serve American or Israeli interests. Rubio and US President Donald Trump both met Qatar’s Prime Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al-Thani on Friday.
Netanyahu signed an agreement on Thursday to push ahead with a settlement expansion plan that would cut across West Bank land that the Palestinians seek for a state – a move the United Arab Emirates warned would undermine the US-brokered Abraham accords that normalized UAE relations with Israel.
Israel, which blocked all food from entering Gaza for 11 weeks earlier this year, has been allowing more aid into the enclave since late July to prevent further food shortages, though the United Nations says far more is needed.
It says it wants civilians to leave Gaza City before it sends more ground forces in. Tens of thousands of people are estimated to have left but hundreds of thousands remain in the area. Hamas has called on people not to leave.
Israeli army forces have been operating inside at least four eastern suburbs for weeks, turning most of at least three of them into wastelands. It is closing in on the center and the western areas of the territory, where most of the displaced people are taking shelter.
Many are reluctant to leave, saying there is not enough space or safety in the south, where Israel has told them to go to what it has designated as a humanitarian zone.
Some say they cannot afford to leave while others say they were hoping the Arab leaders meeting on Monday in Qatar would pressure Israel to scrap its planned offensive.
“The bombardment intensified everywhere and we took down the tents, more than twenty families, we do not know where to go,” said Musbah Al-Kafarna, displaced in Gaza City.
Israel said it had completed five waves of air strikes on Gaza City over the past week, targeting more than 500 sites, including Hamas reconnaissance and sniper sites, buildings containing tunnel openings and weapons depots.
Local officials, who do not distinguish between militant and civilian casualties, say at least 40 people were killed by Israeli fire across the enclave, a least 28 in Gaza City alone.
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Turkey Warns of Escalation as Israel Expands Strikes Beyond Gaza
Turkey’s President Tayyip Erdogan speaks during a press conference with Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis (not seen) at the Presidential Palace in Ankara, Turkey, May 13, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Umit Bektas
i24 News – An Israeli strike targeting Hamas officials in Qatar has sparked unease among several Middle Eastern countries that host leaders of the group, with Turkey among the most alarmed.
Officials in Ankara are increasingly worried about how far Israel might go in pursuing those it holds responsible for the October 7 attacks.
Israel’s prime minister effectively acknowledged that the Qatar operation failed to eliminate the Hamas leadership, while stressing the broader point the strike was meant to make: “They enjoy no immunity,” the government said.
On X, Prime Minister Netanyahu went further, writing that “the elimination of Hamas leaders would put an end to the war.”
A senior Turkish official, speaking on condition of anonymity, summed up Ankara’s reaction: “The attack in Qatar showed that the Israeli government is ready to do anything.”
Legally and diplomatically, Turkey occupies a delicate position. As a NATO member, any military operation or targeted killing on its soil could inflame tensions within the alliance and challenge mutual security commitments.
Analysts caution, however, that Israel could opt for covert measures, operations carried out without public acknowledgement, a prospect that has increased anxiety in governments across the region.
Israeli officials remain defiant. In an interview with Ynet, Minister Ze’ev Elkin said: “As long as we have not stopped them, we will pursue them everywhere in the world and settle our accounts with them.” The episode underscores growing fears that efforts to hunt Hamas figures beyond Gaza could widen regional friction and complicate diplomatic relationships.