A/HRC/10/20 page 4 I. INTRODUCTION 1. The present report does not have benefit from a recent mission to Gaza. Such a mission was planned and attempted in mid-December 2008, but was not carried out due to the denial of entry to the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967. The mission to Gaza was to include a visit to the West Bank and East Jerusalem, and was supposed to commence with a scheduled meeting with the President of the Palestine Authority, Mahmoud Abbas. Entry was denied on 14 December 2008; the Special Rapporteur was detained in a facility close to Ben Gurion Airport, then expelled from Israel the day after. Such a refusal to cooperate with a United Nations representative, not to mention the somewhat humiliating treatment accorded (detention in a locked and dirty cell with five other detainees, and excessive body search), has set an unfortunate precedent with respect to the treatment of a representative of the Human Rights Council, and more generally of the United Nations itself. This precedent should be seriously challenged for the sake of both the mandate and, more broadly, to ensure that in future Member States accord appropriate respect and cooperation with official United Nations missions and activities. One possible form of challenge would be to seek an advisory opinion from the International Court of Justice as to the applicability of the Convention on the Privileges and Immunities of the United Nations. Since such an approach, even if undertaken, would not produce a result in the near future, it would also be important to seek a modification as soon as possible to the position of Israel via diplomatic channels. 2. The expulsion of the Special Rapporteur made information gathering on the ground impossible. In the light of resolution S-9/1 adopted by the Human Rights Council at its ninth special session, the report will focus on the main international law issues raised by Israeli military operations commencing on 27 December 2008 and ending on 18 January 2009. It also considers implications for international criminal law, and discusses the underlying debate as to whether the attacks themselves were violations of the Charter of the United Nations and international law. This broader inquiry is perhaps not strictly within the ambit of the mandate as a distinct subject matter, but its resolution bears directly on the interpretation of alleged violations of international humanitarian and human rights law, which in turn underpin contentions of war crimes and crimes against humanity, as well as implications for accountability and individual criminal responsibility. II. INTRODUCTORY CLARIFICATIONS 3. A conceptual complexity arises from the nature of the participants in this conflict with respect to international law. International law governing the use of force has developed over time to regulate the behaviour of States in their relations with one another. Without questioning in any way the unity of the Occupied Palestinian Territory, it is important to recall that Gaza is sealed off from the rest of occupied Palestine and is not directly represented, given its present administrative structure, in international diplomatic arenas, such as during the donors conference held at Sharm el-Sheikh in March 2009 or in the United Nations. At the same time, the purposes of international law governing force is concerned with the protection of peoples and the preservation of peace, a sentiment echoed in Article 2, paragraph 4, of the Charter extended beyond relations among States by the phrase “or in any other manner inconsistent with the