GENEVA, Dec. 11 (Xinhua) -- A UN rights mission to probe Israeli's killing of 19 Palestinians last month in the northern Gaza town of Beit Hanoun has been canceled because Israel did not authorize the trip, a UN official said here on Monday.

    The mission, led by South Africa's Nobel Peace laureate Desmond Tutu, was dispatched by the Geneva-based UN Human Rights Council.

    It was supposed to go to Beit Hanoun on Sunday and report back to the Council by the end of this week.

    But the mission has been called off, because Israeli authorities did not grant Tutu and his team the necessary travel authorization, the UN official said.

    The Human Rights Council voted to send the fact-finding mission last month after condemning the Beit Hanoun incident, in which more than 19 civilians, mostly women and children, were killed by Israeli shelling on Nov. 8.

    The 47-state Council, which in June replaced the discredited UN Human Rights Commission, has already passed seven resolutions condemning Israeli human rights violations in Palestinian territory and in Lebanon.

    Tutu, the former Anglican Archbishop of Cape Town, was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1984 for his fight against apartheid.