PARIS — The Canadian law professor who resigned this month as head of a United Nations inquiry into last summer’s Gaza conflict said his appointment had been troubled from the outset by intense pressure from Israel’s government, which accused him of a pro-Palestinian bias.

The professor, William Schabas, also said in an interview in Paris last Thursday that he had been subjected to a stream of vulgar and violent emails and several death threats that appeared to have emanated from a range of locations, including from Canada and the United States. Some called him a disgrace and “a self-hating Jew,” he said, and they were among the milder ones.

Professor Schabas resigned last week after the United Nations began a formal inquiry into a possible conflict of interest by him, in response to an Israeli complaint that he had done consulting work for the Palestine Liberation Organization and had failed to disclose it before he was appointed.

He acknowledged having done the work, but asserted it was insignificant and irrelevant to his objectivity, so he had never brought it up before he was invited to lead the commission of inquiry. However, he said in his letter of resignation, the distraction created by the formal investigation of his background would have undercut the Gaza commission’s report, so he decided to quit.