Spain’s National Court plans to proceed with an investigation of Israeli officials for possible war crimes against humanity over the 2002 killing of a Hamas fighter and 14 civilians.
Judge Fernando Andreu announced on Monday that the inquiry would continue over the head of recommendations of prosecutors, who called on him last month to stop the investigation on the grounds that Israel was still investigating the bombing.
Andreu said on Monday that he found no evidence of such an investigation.
The case was opened in January at the request of Palestinian relatives of victims of the attack.
Nine children were among the dead.
Under the principle of universal jurisdiction, crimes such as genocide, terrorism or torture can be prosecuted in Spain even if they were perpetrated elsewhere.
In the attack, on the night of 22 July 2002, an Israeli F-16 fighter jet dropped a one-ton bomb on the house of Salah Shehadeh, a leader in Hamas’ armed wing.
Shehadeh and his family, including nine children, were killed as they slept.
In a legacy of this year’s war, three Palestinian boys were injured on Sunday evening when ordinance left by Israeli military forces exploded near the eastern cemetery in Gaza City.
The victims were evacuated to Kamal Udwan Hospital, where medics said they sustained moderate to light injuries.
On Monday, Israeli forces apprehended a young Palestinian after injuring him east of Beit Hanoun in the northern Gaza Strip.
Local witnesses said Israeli troops seized 12-year-old Ayman Shamiyya after shooting him while he was playing.
There was no word about how serious the boy’s injuries were.
Meanwhile, rights group Physicians for Human Rights-Israel reports that Israel’s Shin Bet internal security service has increased its interrogations of people seeking to leave Gaza for medical treatment.
Data collected by the group ‘indicates a rise in the number of Palestinian patients interrogated and forced to provide information as a precondition to exit Gaza for medical care,’ its report said.
‘Between January 2008 and March 2009, at least 438 patients have been summoned for. . . interrogations. . . as a precondition for the review of their applications for an exit permit for the purpose of accessing medical treatment outside of the strip,’ it added.
Whereas in January 2008, 1.45 per cent of people who had submitted applications to Israeli authorities to leave Gaza were questioned, that number rose to 17 per cent in January 2009, the group said.
It said the Shin Beth had interrogated minors, photographed patients against their will; harassed, cursed and intimidated patients during questioning; and returned to Gaza patients who did not cooperate.
Hamas on Monday condemned all Arab leaders for being responsible for the results of the Israeli blockade over the Gaza Strip, calling on Islamic leaders to begin anew and oppose Israeli practices against Palestinians.
Hamas spokesperson Fawzi Barhoum said in a statement: ‘It is impossible to see our people in Gaza dying in cold blood as a result of this siege, and all the other leaders are standing by and overseeing these people and their suffering without doing anything.
‘Until this moment the Arab reaction doesn’t equal the Gazan massacre and there is not any justification that the Israeli flags fly in the air of the Arab countries while the siege imposed over Gaza is not lifted.’
Barhoum added: ‘I am surprised why the Arab summits in Qatar, Kuwait, Egypt and Saudi Arabia couldn’t take any real decision to lift the siege imposed over Gaza, and we are sure that the siege was a decision taken by Israel and America, but its end will be a decision made by Arabs and Egypt.’
Barhoum called on all Arab and Islamic countries to take serious actions to remove the blockade imposed over the Gaza Strip, which Israel imposed following Hamas’ takeover in the summer of 2007.
Despite assurances that three Gaza Strip crossing points would open for fuel and food on Monday, Israel kept two closed.
The Kerem Shalom crossing in the southeastern Gaza Strip opened on Monday.
Crossings official Raed Fattuh said that the other two remained closed for unknown reasons.
Also on Monday, Israeli troops set fire to Palestinian-owned fields of wheat and barley in Juhor Ad-Dik, in the southeastern Gaza Strip.
Eyewitnesses said that the fire devoured several fields at the eastern border between Israel and the Gaza Strip, which Israeli forces have labelled a military zone. Firefighters hurried to the area and began extinguishing the flames.
Elsewhere, dozens of Israeli settlers chopped town Palestinians’ olive and fig trees in the village of Sinjil, north of the West Bank city of Ramallah on Monday.
Sinjil’s Mayor Imad Abdullah Masalmeh explained that the settlers cut the trees owned by the sick father of four disabled children, Shawqi Hussein Ghafari.
The settlers also cut down olive trees owned by Ali Hussein Fuqaha, Adib Ali Fuqaha, Hussein Farhan Dar Khalil, and the family of Muhammad Yousef Khalil.
The mayor explained that this village is frequently attacked by settlers, pointing that five settlements and outposts encircle the community.
He added that the municipality formed a committee to defend the land from settlers and the expansion of settlements.
He said large swathes of the town are threatened with confiscation as a result of settlement expansion.
He appealed for the Palestinian Authority and rights-related organisations to support the farmers and put a stop to such practices.
