[News] Israeli court rules in favor of sweeping impunity

[Anti-Imperialist News]

electronicintifada.net
<https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/maureen-clare-murphy/israeli-court-rules-favor-sweeping-impunity>
Israeli court rules in favor of sweeping impunity

Maureen Clare Murphy
<https://electronicintifada.net/people/maureen-clare-murphy>  - 11 July 2022
------------------------------

Palestinians carry an injured protester during a Great March of Return
protest along the Gaza-Israel boundary in October 2019.
ActiveStills

Israel’s high court ruled last week in favor of sweeping immunity for the
state for war crimes perpetrated in Gaza.

Palestinian human rights groups say that the ruling underscores the urgent
need for an immediate International Criminal Court investigation.

Adalah, a Palestinian human rights group, stated
<https://www.adalah.org/en/content/view/10651> that the “ruling means that
all Gaza residents are banned from any redress and remedy in Israel,
regardless of the circumstances, during ‘acts of war’ or otherwise.”

The high court ruling is in response to an appeal demanding that Israel pay
compensation for the serious injury of Attiya Nabaheen, who had just turned
15 <https://www.adalah.org/en/content/view/9680> when he was shot by
Israeli forces in his family’s front yard while returning home from school
in Gaza in November 2014.

Nabaheen was paralyzed as a result of his injuries.

Adalah and Al Mezan, another human rights group, had appealed to the court
to challenge a law enacted in 2012 stipulating that residents of the Gaza
Strip are ineligible for compensation from Israel because it was declared
“enemy territory” in 2007.

A lower court used that law to throw out Nabaheen’s effort to receive
compensation from Israel for his injuries.

The high court stated that the law is consistent with international law and
that in any case, Israel’s parliament “has the power to override the rules
of international law.”

Adalah and Al Mezan stated in response that the high court ruling
“justifies the immediate initiation of an [International Criminal Court]
investigation, as it deprives Palestinian civilian victims of war crimes
committed by Israel of any legal remedy.”

The groups add that “there is no clearer evidence of the fact that the
Israeli legal system is committed to the legitimization of war crimes and
to assisting the military in its efforts by denying all legal remedies to
victims.”

An independent UN probe into Israel’s use of lethal force against Great
March of Return protesters in 2018 examined Nabaheen’s case and its
implications for other Gaza residents.

The ruling denies “the main avenue to fulfill their right to ‘effective
legal remedy’ from Israel that is guaranteed to them under international
law,” the UN investigators stated. “The importance of this ruling is thus
difficult to overstate.”

In an attempt to justify the use of lethal force against unarmed
protesters, Israel invented a baseless new paradigm of international law
that categorized the Great March of Return as part of its armed conflict
with Hamas, the Palestinian resistance and political organization that
oversees Gaza’s internal affairs.

The Israeli military’s directives stipulate that a criminal investigation
must be opened immediately following the death of a Palestinian outside
combat activity.

By categorizing the Great March of Return as part of its armed conflict
with Hamas, even though demonstrators were unarmed, Israel created a
separate legal framework for handling complaints related to the protests.
Legal loophole

This major legal loophole is also being applied regarding Palestinians
killed by Israeli occupation forces in the West Bank.

Israel’s military advocate general stated that the killing of Al Jazeera
correspondent Shireen Abu Akleh while she was covering an army raid in
Jenin during May was a “combat event”
<https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/maureen-clare-murphy/amid-outrage-over-journalists-killing-us-vows-put-israel-first>
and therefore no soldier is likely to face criminal charges.

Israel has all but admitted that one of its soldiers killed Abu Akleh and
last week the US State Department announced that the journalist was
“likely” killed by gunfire from Israeli troops.

Both Israel and the US are appearing to treat Abu Akleh’s killing as an
operational error rather than a suspected extrajudicial execution.

Several independent investigations
<https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/omar-karmi/israeli-impunity-intact-despite-abu-akleh-killing>
by human rights groups and international media outlets have also concluded
that Abu Akleh was most likely killed by Israeli fire.

CNN’s forensic investigation, citing explosive weapons expert Chris
Cobb-Smith, notes that “Abu Akleh was killed in discrete shots.”

Cobb-Smith said that “the number of strike marks on the tree where [Abu
Akleh] was standing proves this wasn’t a random shot, she was targeted.”

Last Friday, Abu Akleh’s family issued a letter to US President Joe Biden,
who is scheduled to visit Israel and the West Bank next week, and accused
his administration of “skulking toward the erasure of any wrongdoing by
Israeli forces.”

The US does not appear to be pressing Israel for a criminal investigation,
with State Department spokesperson Ned Price saying during a press briefing
<https://www.state.gov/briefings/department-press-briefing-july-5-2022/>
last Tuesday that “we are not trying to be prescriptive about this.”

For the Biden administration, it seems, accountability means encouraging
“steps to safeguard civilians and non-combatants in a combat zone.”

Price added that the Israeli military “is in a position to consider steps
to see to it that something like this can’t happen again.”

The Abu Akleh family said on Friday that “we are incredulous that such an
expectation would be the pinnacle of your administration’s response.”
The family pointed to unconditional US military aid to Israel and “near
absolute diplomatic support to shield Israeli officials from
accountability.”

The Abu Akleh family called on Biden to meet with them during his upcoming
visit and provide the information gathered by his administration regarding
the journalist’s killing.

The family told the president of its “grief, outrage and sense of betrayal”
at his determined efforts to ensure “the erasure of any wrongdoing by
Israeli forces.”

“We expect the Biden administration [to] support our efforts to push for
accountability and justice … wherever they take us,” the family stated.
International Criminal Court

One such venue is the International Criminal Court, which has been
approached about the killing of Abu Akleh by both the Palestinian Authority
and Al Jazeera. The US has partnered with Israel in trying to undermine The
Hague’s investigation in Palestine.

The ICC privileges a country’s internal investigations, where they exist.

The recent Israeli court ruling rejecting compensation for Attiya Nabaheen
and the cover up of responsibility for the killing of Shireen Abu Akleh
should dispel any remaining doubt over what Israel’s legal system is
designed to serve.

But it is doubtful that the ICC will serve as a court of last resort for
Palestinians with any sense of urgency.

While it accumulates resources for an expedited investigation in Ukraine,
with voluntary contributions for that probe risking the court’s supposed
independence, the Palestine investigation appears to be left to die on the
vine
<https://electronicintifada.net/content/will-icc-help-israel-get-away-shireen-abu-aklehs-murder/35556>
.

The silence over Palestine and other investigations that don’t have the
backing of powerful states “may have weakened the court’s deterrent effect,
and has left a void which has been filled with political attacks on the
court’s work, as well as attacks on human rights defenders,” Amnesty
International recently stated
<https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2022/07/the-icc-at-20-double-standards-have-no-place-in-international-justice/>
.

Without an equally robust response to the crises in Palestine and
Afghanistan, as well as other places, the office of the ICC prosecutor may
be viewed as “just the legal arm of NATO,” as human rights lawyer Reed
Brody recently put it
<https://www.justiceinfo.net/en/102866-icc-20-elusive-success-double-standards-ukraine-moment.html>
.
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