The UN Human Rights Council has appointed a three-member panel to investigate allegations of humanitarian law violations during Israel’s Gaza assault, reports said Monday.

The commission of inquiry will be headed by Canada's William Schabas, an international law professor at Middlesex University in London, the UN council said in a statement quoted by Bloomberg news.

The other members are Amal Alamuddin, a British-Lebanese lawyer, and Doudou Diene of Senegal, the UN's former Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance, the New York-based news agency reported.

Palestinian resistance movement Hamas welcomed the initiative by the United Nations, saying: “We welcome the council's decision to form an international inquiry panel into the war crimes in Gaza,” Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri said in a press release on Monday.

Source: Agencies