A GROUP of lawyers representing Palestinian victims of Israeli attacks on Gaza have filed a complaint to the International Criminal Court (ICC), arguing that Israel’s actions amount to the crime of genocide.
Gilles Devers, a veteran French lawyer and the victims’ representative before the ICC, submitted the complaint to the prosecutor as part of a four-person delegation in the Dutch city of The Hague on Monday.
The civil society initiative could result in arrest warrants being issued against top Israeli politicians, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
‘It is clear for me that there are all the criteria for the crime of genocide,’ Devers told Al Jazeera, adding that cases such as ex-Yugoslavia and Rwanda set the precedent against which the complaint had been submitted.
‘So this is not my opinion, it’s the reality of law.’
Israel has made no attempt to hide the hallmarks of genocide, the group has argued, by cutting food and electricity to Gaza, attacking civilians and civilian infrastructure and using dehumanising talk that likens people to ‘animals’.
The group also collected the witness accounts of Palestinian victims whom they legally represent in court.
With mounting allegations of serious war crimes being committed in Gaza, Devers said governments that did not wish to be found complicit should refrain from backing Israel.
‘Governments must choose which camp they are on, if they support human rights or genocide. They cannot give speeches about international law and human rights and then accept Israel’s attack without doing nothing,’ he said.
Israel does not recognise the ICC, but Devers said that did not render the court ineffective.
In 2021, the ICC ruled that it has jurisdiction over grave crimes committed in occupied Palestinian territories, including potential war crimes committed by any party on the ground.
The initiative led by Devers is one in a number of lawsuits presented to the ICC in the past weeks.
On November 9, three Palestinian human rights groups urged the body to investigate Israel for ‘apartheid’ as well as ‘genocide’ and issue arrest warrants for Israeli leaders.
ISRAEL SUFFERED ‘HUMILIATING DEFEAT’ BY THE PALESTINIANS!
IRAN’S President Ebrahim Raeisi says Israel suffered a ‘humiliating defeat’ at the hands of the Palestinian nation and resistance as they managed to ‘incapacitate’ the regime in its bloody war on the besieged Gaza Strip.
Raeisi made the remarks in an address to a meeting of Iran’s Assembly of Experts yesterday on the 48th day of Israel’s aggression against Gaza, which has failed to secure the occupying regime’s declared objective of eradicating the Palestinian resistance movement Hamas.
‘The Zionists first declared that they wanted to occupy Gaza and destroy the resistance, but they achieved none of their objectives. What remains from the Zionist regime’s killing of women and children and destruction of people’s homes is the global hatred towards this regime,’ he said.
‘If we want to make an analysis after over 40 day … we must say that the enemy suffered a humiliating defeat and that the Palestinian people and resistance scored a great victory.’
The Iranian chief executive also hailed the self-confidence of the Palestinian people, saying they demonstrated a ‘golden scene of resistance’ before the eyes of the world through their resilience against Israeli crimes.
‘The resistance managed to incapacitate the fake regime and frustrate it with no air, naval and ground forces, but trust in God … The power of faith can overcome evil,’ he emphasised.
Today, Raeisi added, people across the world come to the streets crying out for a just world order that can defend the oppressed.
He also noted that the Israeli atrocities in Gaza showed to the world the veracity of the Islamic Republic’s position on Palestine.
‘The Iranian nation always shouted that Palestine is right, and now everyone understood that they (the Israelis) massacred the people of Gaza and Palestine through racial discrimination and racism under the all-out support of the US and the West.’
Israel waged the brutal war on Gaza on October 7 after the Palestinian Hamas resistance group launched a surprise attack, dubbed Operation Al-Aqsa Storm, in the occupied territories in retaliation for the Tel Aviv regime’s incessant crimes against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank.
Since the start of the aggression, the Tel Aviv regime has killed 14,532 Palestinians, including 6,000 children and 3,920 women, and injured at least 35,000 others. Over 7,000 people are also missing and believed buried under the rubble.
It has also imposed a ‘complete siege’ on the coastal sliver, cutting off fuel, electricity, food and water to the more than two million Palestinians living there.
On Wednesday, Hamas announced a truce, under which Israel agreed to halt all military actions in Gaza for four days and allow hundreds of trucks carrying humanitarian aid into the territory.
