Nobel Laureate Desmond Tutu has been named to head a United Nations fact-finding mission to the Gaza Strip town of Beit Hanoun, where 19 civilians were killed by an Israeli artillery barrage earlier this month, UN officials said Wednesday.

The South African anti-apartheid campaigner and former Anglican archbishop of Cape Town will travel to Gaza to "assess the situation of victims, address the needs of survivors, and make recommendations on ways and means to protect Palestinian civilians against further Israeli assaults," according to the president of the UN Human Rights Council, Luis Alfonso De Alba.

The mission will report its findings to the Geneva-based body by mid-December, the statement said. The shelling, which Israel said was unintended, came after Israeli troops wound up a weeklong incursion meant to curb Palestinian rocket attacks on Israel from the town, which the Israeli army said was a rocket-launching stronghold.

(IOL NEWS ONLINE, 29 Nov. 2006)