[News] Demands for prosecution - Israeli administration moves to sidestep war crimes tribunals

[Anti-Imperialist News]

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Israeli administration moves to sidestep war crimes tribunals
http://english.pnn.ps/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=4586&Itemid=1

21.01.09 - 10:08

Bethlehem / PNN – Allegations of war crimes are 
being readied for international courts, including 
from a group of lawyers in Brussels and the 
United Nations that has just named five nominees 
to head its investigation committee.

Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni has been 
called for immediate arrest, as were the outgoing 
Prime Minister and Defense Minister.

Amnesty International’s field delegation said 
that the Israeli use of white phosphorus bombs in 
Gaza City alone constitutes a war crime.

 From the first week of more than three of 
attacks the Israeli military and administration 
began to provide cover for itself.

Now with the end of the major attacks, the 
Israeli military is taking additional steps. The 
Israeli press reported this morning that they are 
working to “protect the military officers who 
were involved in the recent war on Gaza for fear 
of litigation against them abroad.”

Steps include obscuring the identities of the 
Israeli officers who participated in the attacks.

According to the Israeli newspaper, Ha'aretz, it 
was decided that to make known the full names of 
military commanders of the units that 
participated in the war on Gaza is forbidden. 
This is directly to “prevent the possibility of 
prosecution for war crimes by Israeli left-wing 
activists and international organizations.”

Recent steps were taken by the military after 
Israeli human rights activists established a 
website listing the names of officers in order to 
charge them with war crimes and crimes against 
humanity. This applies to both Israeli officials 
in the government and military.

The website, 
<http://english.pnn.ps/http://www.wanted.org.il/>www.wanted.org.il, 
contains notices with personal details of Ehud 
Barak and Ehud Olmert, Tzipi Livni, Gabi 
Ashkenazi, and others. The site also includes 
details of communications to the Israeli 
officials and with the Supreme Court of Justice 
in The Hague against the alleged Israeli war 
criminals. The time periods of travel outside 
Israeli boundaries are also include.

Initiators of the website say that among their 
objectives is to help lift the media blackout and 
freedom of information freeze imposed by the Israeli administration.

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Bethlehem families sound call for legal justice

http://english.pnn.ps/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=4591&Itemid=1
21.01.09 - 17:16

Bethlehem / Najib Farrag – As part of the 
resistance, Palestinians are again invoking 
international law by leading a global movement to 
try Israeli leaders for war crimes.

Director of the Palestinian Prisoners Society in 
Bethlehem, Abdullah Zughari told a sit-in today 
in the West Bank city, “Israeli officials and 
military leaders be prosecuted as war criminals...

...by the International Criminal Court, charged 
with the massacres and destruction in the Gaza Strip.”

 From the families of the 11,000 Palestinians in 
Israeli prisons came an echo to the call moving 
toward The Hague. “One cannot allow the killing 
of children and women, and the destroying of 
homes and use of internationally prohibited 
weapons,” said a father who added a demand for 
the release of political prisoners.

Wednesday’s demonstration was held in front of 
the local headquarters of the international Red 
Cross on Jamal Abdel Nasser Street. “We are 
here,” said an organizer, “in solidarity with the 
people of Gaza and with the political prisoners 
in Israeli jails. We are here in condemnation of 
the war unleashed by Israel on the Strip.”

Parents held photos of their imprisoned children 
alongside those of the victims of Gaza. Amid the 
call for a war crimes tribunal protestors threw 
shoes at posters of Israeli officials Olmert and Livni placed on the ground.

PPS Director Zughari noted that Israeli forces 
“used internationally prohibited weapons and 
white phosphorus in crowded spaces,” calling on 
international jurists for follow-up.

Of the some 250 Palestinians taken by Israeli 
forces during the attacks on the Gaza Strip, 
Zughari demanded their immediate release along 
with that of the approximately 11,000 held in prisons.




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