FORMER United Nations human rights chief Navi Pillay has been tasked with leading an open-ended commission of inquiry into “systematic abuses” in Israel and the occupied territories.

UN Human Rights Council president Nazhat Shameem Khan announced that the former South African judge would led a three-person probe into the causes of the decades-long Middle East “conflict.”

The Commission of Inquiry (COI) was triggered by the Israeli bombardment of Gaza, during which more than 250 Palestinians were killed and hospitals and other infrastructure targeted in an 11-day bombing campaign.