On the eve of a UN meeting on the atrocities Israel carried out during the Gaza war, the Israeli prime minister has declared that Israeli officials will not submit to prosecution for war crimes.

The United Nations Human Rights Council will hold a special session on Thursday to reopen the discussion on Israel’s three-week offensive against Gaza. "We will not agree to a situation in which (former Prime Minister) Ehud Olmert, (Defense Minister) Ehud Barak and (former Foreign Minister) Tzipi Livni … will be called to the defendants’ benches at The Hague," Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was quoted by the Israeli daily Maariv as saying on Monday.

They had "sent Israeli soldiers to defend cities and civilians," he said about the officials responsible for authorizing Operation Cast Lead, which killed over 1,400 Palestinians in the Gaza Strip between December 27 and January 18.

The comments came as the UN Human Rights Council prepares to decide whether to continue discussion of a related report which condemns Israel for committing war crimes during the offensive.
"This distorted report, written by this distorted committee, undermines Israel’s right to self defense and encourages terrorism and endangers peace," Netanyahu added, according to Haaretz, another Israeli newspaper.

Continued discussion could lead to the submission of the report to the UN Security Council.
China, Egypt, Indonesia, Nigeria, Pakistan, and Saudi Arabia have been urging the UN to continue the debate while the US has been pressuring the UN Human Rights Council to postpone a vote which condemns Israel for failure to cooperate with the Gaza inquiry.

Israel was literally able to get away with murder for many years, but now, as the world calls for action on Israel’s war crimes, Zionist regime officials are beginning to realize that the era of impunity is coming to an end.

(Press TV)