International Legal Coalition Launched to ‘Pursue Israeli War Crimes Suspects’

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Original article by Brett Wilkins republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).

International Center of Justice for Palestinians director Tayab Ali (right) and ICJP Canada human rights lawyer Shane Martinez (left) take part in the launch of Global 195 in London on March 18, 2025. (Photo: Rasid Necati Aslim/Anadolu via Getty Images)

“Under international law, states have a duty to investigate and prosecute war crimes, yet these obligations have been systematically neglected,” one of the initiative’s founders lamented.

Lawyers from half a dozen countries on Tuesday launched a coalition dedicated to bringing Israelis and dual nationals accused of war crimes in Palestine to justice.

The U.K.-based International Center of Justice for Palestinians (ICJP) hosted a launch event in London for the new initiative, called Global 195. ICJP said lawyers will “pursue Israeli war crimes suspects across the world” via arrest warrant applications and the initiation of legal proceedings including private prosecutions against implicated members and veterans of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), as well as “figures spanning the entire Israeli military and political chain of command, from senior policymakers to operational personnel, who are directly or indirectly responsible for violations of international law.”

Participants include attorneys from Bosnia and Herzegovina, Canada, Malaysia, Norway, Turkey, and the United Kingdom, where “advanced preparations have already been made to pursue legal action against British citizens suspected of joining the IDF or committing war crimes in Gaza and the West Bank.”

For the past 18 months, ICJP has been collecting evidence as part of its Justice for Gaza campaign, including 135 eyewitness testimonies backed by open-source intelligence. Documented violations of international law include indiscriminate and disproportionate bombing of civilians, attacks on designated “safe zones,”s airstrikes targeting refugee camps, use of starvation as a weapon of war, and forced displacement.

“The obstruction of international legal institutions in pursuing individuals responsible for war crimes in Palestine, coupled with the failure of national police forces to fulfill their obligations under humanitarian law and universal jurisdiction principles, has allowed impunity for Israeli suspected war criminals to persist,” ICJP director Tayab Ali said in a statement.

“Under international law, states have a duty to investigate and prosecute war crimes, yet these obligations have been systematically neglected,” Ali added. “The launch of Global 195 is a necessary legal intervention to remedy this failure. By activating domestic legal mechanisms across multiple jurisdictions, we are ensuring that those responsible for war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in Gaza are subject to legal accountability and no longer have anywhere to hide.”

Huseyin Disli, vice president of the Worldwide Lawyers Association, noted that “no domestic court has issued arrest warrants for Israeli genocide war criminals, exposing the failure of the international legal order” and called the global legal community “incoherent in its goals.”

Israel is currently the subject of an International Court of Justice genocide case filed by South Africa, and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant are fugitives from the International Criminal Court, which last November issued arrest warrants over alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza. However, key nations including the United States—which has not ratified the Rome Statute upon which the ICC is based—have ignored the warrants, and last month the Trump administration imposed sanctions on the tribunal.

Since October 2023, Israeli forces have killed or wounded more than 175,000 Palestinians in Gaza, including people who are missing and presumed dead and buried beneath rubble, according to the Gaza Health Ministry. On Tuesday, Israel unilaterally abandoned an eight-week cease-fire and resumed its assault on Gaza, killing more than 400 people including at least 174 children in airstrikes that wiped out entire families.

United Nations expertsinternational juristshuman rights groups, and others have found that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza, as well as crimes including indiscriminate and disproportionate killing of civilians, extrajudicial killingtorturesexual violence including rape, use of starvation as a weapon of war, and forced displacement.

The launch of Global 195 follows the establishment last September of the Hind Rajab Foundation, a Belgium-based legal group that pursues arrest warrants for alleged Israeli war criminals traveling abroad. The organization is named after a 6-year-old Palestinian girl who was killed—along with six relatives—by Israeli forces in January 2024 while trying to flee to safety in a car. Two paramedics who tried to rescue her were also killed.

Original article by Brett Wilkins republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).

Continue ReadingInternational Legal Coalition Launched to ‘Pursue Israeli War Crimes Suspects’

Israel’s most extreme genocidal violence beckons

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Palestinians inspect the damage following an Israeli airstrike on the El-Remal aera in Gaza City on October 9, 2023. Israel continued to battle Hamas fighters on October 10 and massed tens of thousands of troops and heavy armour around the Gaza Strip after vowing a massive blow over the Palestinian militants' surprise attack. Photo by Naaman Omar apaimages. licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.
Palestinians inspect the damage following an Israeli airstrike on the El-Remal aera in Gaza City on October 9, 2023. Israel continued to battle Hamas fighters on October 10 and massed tens of thousands of troops and heavy armour around the Gaza Strip after vowing a massive blow over the Palestinian militants’ surprise attack. Photo by Naaman Omar apaimages. licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.

https://www.owenjones.news/p/israels-most-extreme-genocidal-violence

16 days ago, Israel imposed a total blockade on Gaza, preventing any humanitarian aid of any description from getting in – food, medicine, you name it. That’s caused the price of some staple foods to surge by 200%.

This is a straightforward crime. Indeed, Israel had already repeatedly deliberately starved Gaza and prevented the essentials of life from entering and then from getting to the people who need it – but kept claiming otherwise. This time, they just went and said it – boasting of their criminal violation of international law. Indeed the International Criminal Court’s arrest warrants against Benjamin Netanyahu and his former defence minister centre on the crime of starvation.

This criminality was apparently finally recognised by the British government. When asked about this siege, British Foreign Secretary David Lammy told Parliament that Israel is “in breach of international law”.

You might be relieved that, after all this time, the British government has said the obvious.

Not so fast with any kudos for Lammy. The government came out and promptly rebuked him and instead said that Israel was only “at risk” of violating international law. Lammy – a self-aggrandiser devoid of principle or backbone – declared he “could have have been clearer”, backtracking on the truth.

But this was nonetheless a confession. Lammy admitted Israel is violating the law, something he obviously knows is true, which means continued arms sales and diplomatic support for Israel constitute willing and knowing complicity in Israel’s crimes.

https://www.owenjones.news/p/israels-most-extreme-genocidal-violence

UK Foreign Minister David Lammy confirms that UK government and military are active participants in Israel’s genocides and that the F-35 parts that they suspended from supplying to Israel are instead simply diverted via the United States. He says see https://youtu.be/QILgUHrdWRE
UK Foreign Minister David Lammy confirms that UK government and military are active participants in Israel’s genocides and that the F-35 parts that they suspended from supplying to Israel are instead simply diverted via the United States. He says see https://youtu.be/QILgUHrdWRE
Experiencing issues with this image not appearing. I suspect because it's so critical of Zionist Keir Starmer's support of and complicity in Israel's genocides.
Genocide denier and Current UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer is quoted that he supports Zionism without qualification. He also confirms that UK air force support has been essential in Israel’s mass-murdering genocide. Includes URLs https://www.declassifieduk.org/keir-starmers-100-spy-flights-over-gaza-in-support-of-israel/ and https://youtu.be/O74hZCKKdpA
Continue ReadingIsrael’s most extreme genocidal violence beckons

As Freed Palestinians Describe Torture, Trump OKs $3 Billion Arms Package for Israel

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Original article by Brett Wilkins republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).

An Israeli soldier carries a U.S.-supplied 155mm artillery shell near a self-propelled howitzer deployed at a position near the border with Lebanon in the upper Galilee region of northern Israel on October 18, 2023. (Photo: Jalaa Marey/ AFP via Getty Images)

Like the Biden administration, Trump is claiming an “emergency” in order to bypass Congress.

As Palestinians released from Israeli imprisonment recount torture and other abuse suffered at the hands of their former captors, the Trump administration on Friday approved a new $3 billion weapons package for Israel.

The new package, reported by Zeteo‘s Prem Thakker, includes nearly $2.716 billion worth of bombs and weapons guidance kits, as well as $295 million in bulldozers. The Trump administration said that “an emergency exists that requires the immediate sale,” allowing it to bypass Congress, as the Biden administration did on multiple occasions. However, the weapons won’t be delivered until 2026 or 2027.

The Trump-Vance State Department just approved $3.01 billion in arms & equipment sales to Israel$2.04 billion in bombs$675.7 million in bombs & weapon guidance kits$295 million in bulldozersAdministration said "an emergency exists that requires the immediate sale," waiving congressional review

Prem Thakker ツ (@premthakker.bsky.social) 2025-02-28T21:56:45.465Z

From October 2023 to October 2024, Israel received a record $17.9 billion worth of U.S. arms as it waged a war of annihilation against the Gaza Strip that left more than 170,000 Palestinians dead, maimed, or missing and millions more displaced, starved, or sickened. Israel is facing genocide allegations in an International Court of Justice case brought by South Africa. The International Criminal Court has also issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant.

Reporting on the new package came after U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) on Monday announced an effort to block four other arms sales totaling $8.56 billion in offensive American weaponry to Israel.

Meanwhile, some of the approximately 1,000 Palestinians released by Israel as part of a prisoner swap described grim stories of abuse by Israeli forces. The former detainees, who were arrested but never charged with any crimes, “have returned visibly malnourished and scarred by the physical and psychological torture they say they faced in Israeli prisons,” according to The Washington Post. Some returned to what were once their homes to find them destroyed and their relatives killed or wounded by Israeli forces.

Eyas al-Bursh, a doctor volunteering at al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City when he was captured by Israeli troops, was held in Sde Teiman and the Ofer military prison in the illegally occupied West Bank for 11 months.

“The places where we were held were harsh, sleep was impossible, and we remained handcuffed and blindfolded,” al-Bursh told the Post.

“We endured psychological and physical torture without a single day of respite—whether through beatings, abuse, punches, or even verbal insults and humiliation,” he added.

The Israel Defense Forces told the Post that it “acts in accordance with Israeli and international law in order to protect the rights of the detainees held in the detention and questioning facilities.”

However, farmer Ashraf al-Radhi, who was held for 14 months—including at the notorious Sde Teiman prison in Israel’s Negev Desert—told the Post that “we witnessed all kinds of humiliation.”

According to the newspaper:

Radhi said he “wished for death” during his detention, which included long periods when he was blindfolded, handcuffed, andcrammed into a filthy cell with dozens of other prisoners. The 34-year-old said he had no access to a lawyer; no idea why he was there; or what, in his absence, had become of his family.

Rahdi also said that Mohammed al-Akka, a 44-year-old detainee held with him, died last December. Al-Akka is one of dozens of Palestinian prisoners who have died in Israeli custody, some from suspected torture and, in at least one case, rape with an electric baton. A number of Israeli reservists are being investigated for the alleged gang-rape of a Sde Teiman prisoner.

Original article by Brett Wilkins republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).

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As With Biden, Sanders Aims to Torpedo Trump’s Weapons Sales to Israel

Continue ReadingAs Freed Palestinians Describe Torture, Trump OKs $3 Billion Arms Package for Israel

British general’s secret visit to Israel ‘should be stopped’

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https://onaquietday.org/wp-admin/post-new.php

General Zachary Stenning is leading a UK military delegation to Israel. (Photo: Tim Ireland / Alamy)

Exclusive: UK military accused of giving a “fig leaf” to Israeli forces as another trip to Tel Aviv is uncovered.

A senior British soldier is heading to Israel for a briefing from the country’s military, despite it being under investigation for genocide and war crimes, Declassified has found.

The trip will be led by major general Zachary Stenning, a former commandant of Sandhurst officer academy.

He is now a director of Strategic Command, part of the Ministry of Defence (MoD). Known as StratCom, it describes its role as “learning and adapting to make Defence more lethal…We are the capabilities you don’t usually see. Or those you can’t.”

The trip is taking place just weeks after the Israeli military’s head of operations, General Oded Basyuk, had to be given immunity from prosecution to visit the MoD in London.

Israeli generals are afraid of being detained abroad after the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former defence minister Yoav Gallant over the siege of Gaza.

Business as usual

Although the UK government has banned the export of certain weapons to Israel, Declassified understands that the MoD is routinely conducting bilateral military engagement with the Israel Defence Forces (IDF).

John Deverell, a retired brigadier who was director of defence diplomacy at the MoD, told Declassified that British soldiers should not be visiting Israel at this time.

He said: “Our MoD should not have anything to do with their Israeli opposite numbers – and nor should British armed forces as a whole. 

“Any relationship between the two militaries is useful to the IDF because an onlooker can infer that the British Army agrees with how the IDF conducts operations. In effect, it gives a sort of fig leaf to the IDF. 

“But the danger to the British of the series of meetings that are apparently taking place is significant. At the least we are perceived as non-critical of the IDF. And at worst we may be seen as complicit in war crimes. 

Article continues at https://onaquietday.org/wp-admin/post-new.php

Experiencing issues with this image not appearing. I suspect because it's so critical of Zionist Keir Starmer's support of and complicity in Israel's genocides.
Genocide denier and Current UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer is quoted that he supports Zionism without qualification. He also confirms that UK air force support has been essential in Israel’s mass-murdering genocide. Includes URLs https://www.declassifieduk.org/keir-starmers-100-spy-flights-over-gaza-in-support-of-israel/ and https://youtu.be/O74hZCKKdpA
UK Foreign Minister David Lammy confirms that UK government and military are active participants in Israel’s genocides and that the F-35 parts that they suspended from supplying to Israel are instead simply diverted via the United States. He says see https://youtu.be/QILgUHrdWRE
UK Foreign Minister David Lammy confirms that UK government and military are active participants in Israel’s genocides and that the F-35 parts that they suspended from supplying to Israel are instead simply diverted via the United States. He says see https://youtu.be/QILgUHrdWRE
Continue ReadingBritish general’s secret visit to Israel ‘should be stopped’

‘No chance’: South Africa says won’t withdraw Israel genocide case despite Trump threats

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This work by Middle East Monitor is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. I

Minister of Justice and Correctional Services of South Africa Ronald Lamola answers the questions of press members related to the public hearings of South Africa’s genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague, Netherlands on January 11, 2024 [Dursun Aydemir – Anadolu Agency]

South Africa has vowed not to withdraw its genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice (ICJ), despite the Trump administration’s threats and aid cut.

There is “no chance” South Africa could withdraw the case it filed in December 2023, Foreign Minister Ronald Lamola told the Financial Times.

“Standing by our principles sometimes has consequences, but we remain firm that this is important for the world, and the rule of law,” he added.

South Africa was the first nation to drag Israel to the ICJ over its genocidal war on Gaza that has claimed more than 48,000 lives and reduced the enclave to rubble. A ceasefire that took hold on 19 January is currently in place.

Last week, US President Donald Trump signed an executive order halting financial aid to South Africa in retaliation for a new land appropriation law it claims seizes property from the country’s White minority, as well as the ICJ case against Israel.

The US also alleges that South Africa is working with Iran to “develop commercial, military and nuclear arrangements.”

“The United States cannot support the government of South Africa’s commission of rights violations in its country or its ‘undermining United States foreign policy, which poses national security threats to our Nation, our allies, our African partners, and our interests,” the order read.

“While we do have a good relationship with Iran, we don’t have any nuclear programmes with them, nor any trade to speak of,” Lamola said.

South African President Cyril Ramaphosa recently signed the expropriation bill into law, which will allow the state to expropriate land without compensation if it is “just, equitable and in the public interest.”

The government says the law aims to address apartheid’s past injustices, and that Trump’s accusations are lies, distortions and misinformation.

According to Ramaphosa, the country was only receiving HIV/AIDS prevention funding from the US.

After South Africa instituted proceedings against Israel alleging violations of the 1948 Genocide Convention in the Gaza Strip, several countries joined the case including Nicaragua, Colombia, Cuba, Libya, Mexico, Spain, Belize and Turkiye.

The International Criminal Court has separately issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former Defence Minister Yoav Gallant for war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza. Trump has also sanctioned the ICC for investing Israeli officials.

READ: Israel will stay in south Lebanon, says military spokesperson

This work by Middle East Monitor is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. I

Elon Musk urges you to be a Fascist like him, says that you can ignore facts and reality then.
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Climate Science Denier Donald Trump says Burn, Baby, Burn.
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Continue Reading‘No chance’: South Africa says won’t withdraw Israel genocide case despite Trump threats