South Africa's Tutu heads UN mission to Beit Hanoun

GENEVA, Nov 29 (Reuters) South African Nobel laureate Desmond Tutu will head a UN fact-finding mission to Gaza's Beit Hanoun where 19 civilians were killed earlier this month by Israeli shelling, the United Nations announced today.

The former archbishop of Cape Town and winner of the 1984 Peace Prize for his fight against apartheid will report back to the Geneva-based Human Rights Council by the middle of December, the council's president, ambassador Luis Alfonso de Alba, said in a statement.

Earlier this month, the 47-state council approved a resolution that condemned ''gross and systematic'' human rights violations by Israel in the occupied territory and ordered an investigation into the Beit Hanoun incident.

Israel said it regretted the deaths in Beit Hanoun on November 8, but it blamed violence in Gaza on Palestinian gunmen and rocket crews.

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