Gaza children back calls for ICC probe of Israeli war crimes

Published yesterday (updated) 03/09/2009 13:38

Gaza – Ma'an –

During a news conference in Gaza on Tuesday Palestinian children asked the International Criminal Court (ICC) to prosecute Israeli occupation government leaders for "war crimes."

In particular the children asked that the court prosecute Israeli "pilots, who wiped out the stone (buildings) and the human (beings) without mercy."

The children renewed their demands that Israel respect their legitimate right to a decent life, and specifically to the freedom of movement without fear.

The conference was made in a show of solidarity with 15-year-old Amira Al-Karam whose father, brother and sister were killed in front of her eyes by Israeli occupation forces in the last Israeli war on Gaza, in January 2009. Al-Karam lodged a complaint at the ICC in The Hague, the Netherlands on Monday seeking justice for her family.

The Palestinian children also appealed to all international institutions to provide the Gaza Strip for humanitarian supplies and medical equipment that the territory desperately lacks as a result of an ongoing siege maintained by Israel and Egypt for the past 44 months.

President of the Central Committee of the Documentation and Pursuit of Israeli War Criminals (Tawtheek) Dia Al-Madhoun said that the case made by Al-Karam is only the beginning. He said that Tawtheek will be providing dozens of victims' cases to the international court in the near future.

Al-Madhoun said that they have petitioned the International Criminal Court to compensate the child Amira Al-Karam who was seriously injured in her leg during the last war on Gaza, and said in that war that there were "more than 1500 martyrs and nearly 5000 injured people."

ICC prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo announced in February he had begun a "preliminary analysis" of alleged crimes committed by Israel during the Gaza assault.

He has to date received complaints and evidence from Palestinian Justice Minister Ali Kashan, the Palestinian Authority, and over 360 other individuals and NGOs, his office told AFP on Monday.

Hamas: Livni is the head of the Zionist terrorism

[ 02/09/2009 - 12:23 PM ]

GAZA, (PIC)--

Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum stated that Tzipi Livni, the former Israeli occupation government foreign minister, is the head of the Zionist terrorism because of her criminal war on the Gaza Strip.

Barhoum’s remarks came in response to Livni’s statement in which she refused any Israeli negotiations or truce with Hamas.

The spokesman also described Livni as a war criminal heading a Zionist gang that had excelled in killing Palestinian civilians, displacing them and destroying thousands of homes over their heads.

He also noted that his Movement is the party which does not trust the Israeli occupation and cannot be involved in any kind of negotiations with it.

In another context, Jamal Zahalka, the head of the national democratic alliance in the Israeli Knesset, said Wednesday that inciting against Palestinians and imposing more restrictions on them became recently like a wanted popular commodity inside Israel.

Zahalka stressed that the Zionist campaign of incitement and amplification exercised by Israel through its media outlets against the Palestinians of the 1948 occupied lands comes in the context of the racism and hostility against Arabs and Muslims.

The Knesset member also noted that internal intelligence is trying through the detention of Palestinians and other Arabs to retaliate to the arrest of its spies in Lebanon in order to cover up its failure and to show to the world that it has discovered Hezbollah's spy rings inside Israel.