<html>
<head>
<meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8">
</head>
<body bgcolor="#FFFFFF" text="#000000">
<h1 class="page__title title balance-text" id="page-title">Case of
Gaza family killed in their sleep taken to International Criminal
Court</h1>
<header class="node__header">
<p class="node__submitted">
<span class="field field-author"><a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/people/ali-abunimah"
typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel"
datatype="">Ali Abunimah</a></span> <br>
<b><small><small><small><small><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/case-gaza-family-killed-their-sleep-taken-international-criminal-court">https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/case-gaza-family-killed-their-sleep-taken-international-criminal-court</a></small></small></small></small></b><br>
<span class="field field-publication-date"><span
class="date-display-single" property="dc:date"
datatype="xsd:dateTime" content="2015-11-23T18:45:34+00:00">23
November 2015</span></span> </p>
</header>
<figure id="file-32538" class="file file-image file-image-jpeg"><picture
class="media-element file-figure"><source
srcset="https://electronicintifada.net/sites/electronicintifada.net/files/styles/original_800w/public/200814_ash_00_11.jpg?itok=fqiamay3×tamp=1448299603
1x" media="(min-width: 72rem)"></picture><figcaption
class="group-caption field-group-html-element"><small
class="credit"><span class="field field-publisher"></span></small></figcaption></figure>
<p>“We have become used to Israel killing and injuring Palestinians
in the Gaza Strip,” says Bouthaineh al-Louh. “But nothing could
have fully prepared me for the devastating loss of my sons,
grandsons and granddaughters in an attack against our family
home.”</p>
<p>Al-Louh is one of the Palestinians whose cases are included in
evidence submitted Monday to <a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/tags/fatou-bensouda">Fatou
Bensouda</a>, the chief prosecutor at the <a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/tags/international-criminal-court">International
Criminal Court</a> (ICC), of crimes documented by Palestinian
human rights organizations during Israel’s 2014 offensive against
the Gaza Strip.</p>
<h2>Killed in their sleep</h2>
<p>“On 20 August 2014 at 4:45 AM, Israel attacked our home in Deir
al-Balah whilst my family was fast asleep. My son and two stepsons
were killed in the attack, as well as my nine-months pregnant
daughter-in-law and her three children,” al-Louh says in a <a
href="http://alhaq.org/advocacy/targets/international-criminal-court-icc/998-palestinian-human-rights-organisations-deliver-submission-to-the-international-criminal-court-on-alleged-israeli-war-crimes-and-crimes-against-humanity-during-2014-gaza-offensive">statement</a>
from <a href="https://electronicintifada.net/tags/al-haq-0">Al-Haq</a>,
whose director <a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/tags/shawan-jabarin">Shawan
Jabarin</a> handed the file to Bensouda in The Hague.</p>
<p>The evidence addresses specific attacks on Palestinian homes,
hospitals, schools and high-rise buildings.</p>
<p>It was submitted by Al-Haq, <a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/tags/al-mezan">Al-Mezan
Center for Human Rights</a>, Aldameer and the <a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/tags/pchr">Palestinian
Centre for Human Rights</a> under a provision of the court’s
founding <a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/tags/rome-statute-international-criminal-court">Rome
Statute</a> that permits the prosecutor to launch investigations
on her own initiative on the basis of information she receives.</p>
<p>This can include evidence submitted by states, human rights
organizations and international bodies.</p>
<p>Monday’s submission is the <a
href="https://ccrjustice.org/home/press-center/press-releases/palestinian-human-rights-delegation-meets-hague-court-prosecutor">first
of its kind</a>, according to the <a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/tags/center-constitutional-rights">Center
for Constitutional Rights</a>, whose attorney Katherine
Gallagher accompanied the Palestinian delegation to the ICC.</p>
<p>If Bensouda’s preliminary analysis finds there is a “reasonable
basis to proceed,” the prosecutor must seek permission from a
panel of judges, known as a pre-trial chamber, to open a formal
investigation.</p>
<p>Israel’s 51-day assault on Gaza beginning in early July 2014,
left more than 2,200 Palestinians dead, including 551 children,
according to the report of an <a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/balance-un-gaza-report-cant-hide-massive-israeli-war-crimes">independent
UN inquiry</a> published in June.</p>
<p>Israel injured thousands more, displaced hundreds of thousands of
people and devastated large areas of Gaza.</p>
<p>That inquiry concluded that the death and destruction was the
consequence of a “policy, approved at least tacitly by
decision-makers at the highest levels of the Government of
Israel.”</p>
<figure id="file-32539" class="file file-image file-image-jpeg"><picture
class="media-element file-figure"><source
srcset="https://electronicintifada.net/sites/electronicintifada.net/files/styles/original_800w/public/2015-11-23_bensouda-jabarin.jpg?itok=CAYv8kEh×tamp=1448299844
1x" media="(min-width: 72rem)"></picture><figcaption
class="group-caption field-group-html-element"><small
class="credit"><span class="field field-publisher"></span></small></figcaption></figure>
<p>In January, the ICC prosecutor <a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/icc-preliminary-probe-palestine-still-long-way-war-crimes-trials">opened
a preliminary examination</a> into the situation in the occupied
West Bank and Gaza Strip, dating back to 13 June 2014, which
includes the attack on Gaza.</p>
<p>This followed the UN’s announcement that it had <a
href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/01/07/us-palestinians-israel-un-idUSKBN0KG1JV20150107">accepted</a>
the Palestinian Authority’s accession to the ICC, as the “State of
Palestine.”</p>
<p>In February, the National Lawyers Guild <a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/charlotte-silver/icc-receives-report-debunking-israels-self-defense-claims-gaza-attack">submitted
a report</a> to the ICC prosecutor debunking Israeli claims that
the attack on Gaza was an act of self-defense.</p>
<h2>Reluctant</h2>
<p>Israel and the US administration of President Barack Obama have
been <a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/icc-preliminary-probe-palestine-still-long-way-war-crimes-trials">implacably
hostile</a> to any efforts to bring accountability for Israel’s
crimes.</p>
<p>Perhaps as a <a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/milosevic-prosecutor-claims-top-icc-official-bowing-israeli-us-pressure">result</a>
of the intense political pressure on the court, Bensouda has been
reluctant in at least one other major case to proceed with
investigations of Israeli crimes.</p>
<p>Earlier this month, ICC appeal judges <a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/charlotte-silver/icc-prosecutor-ordered-investigate-israeli-attack-mavi-marmara">ordered
her</a> to review her decision to close a preliminary
examination into Israel’s deadly attack on a ship full of
activists in May 2010.</p>
<p>Bensouda has yet to reach a new decision on whether or not to
pursue Israel’s violent raid on the <em>Mavi Marmara</em>, a
Turkish-owned vessel that was part of a flotilla sailing in
international waters on its way to break the Israeli siege on
Gaza.</p>
<p>Ten people died as a result of the Israeli attack.</p>
<h2>End impunity</h2>
<p>Palestinian human rights defenders and Israel’s victims hope that
the evidence they handed Bensouda today will leave the court no
excuse not to pursue justice for Israel’s victims in Gaza.</p>
<p>“We are confident that the information now at the disposal of the
office of the prosecutor is sufficient to open an investigation,
and urge her to act quickly to begin a formal investigation,”
Al-Haq director Shawan Jabarin said.</p>
<p>“Israel is unwilling and Palestine is unable to domestically hold
to account Israeli perpetrators of international crimes,” <a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/tags/raji-sourani">Raji
Sourani</a>, director of the Palestinian Centre for Human
Rights, stated. “We need the ICC to break the cycle of impunity.”</p>
<p>“Our family will never again be complete, and our house is in
ruins,” Bouthaineh al-Louh stated. “I hope that the ICC can
acknowledge the crimes that we endured and punish those that
deprived us of our loved ones.”</p>
<div class="moz-signature">-- <br>
Freedom Archives
522 Valencia Street
San Francisco, CA 94110
415 863.9977
<a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="http://www.freedomarchives.org">www.freedomarchives.org</a>
</div>
</body>
</html>