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Tag: Yoav Gallant

  • ICC applies for arrest warrants for Netanyahu and Gallant

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    Original article republished from peoples’ dispatch under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 (CC BY-SA) license.

    (Photo: Ministerie van Buitenlandse Zaken)

    ICC Chief Prosecutor Karim Khan issued warrants for the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister, as well as for three Hamas leaders

    On May 20, International Criminal Court Chief Prosecutor, Karim Khan, issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant. Netanyahu and Gallant stand accused of “war crimes and crimes against humanity,” including but not limited to “starvation of civilians as a method of warfare,” “wilfully causing great suffering, or serious injury to body or health,” and “intentionally directing attacks against a civilian population.” 

    Khan also issued warrants for Hamas leaders Yahya Sinwar, Mohammed Al Dief, and Ismail Haniya. They also stand accused of crimes against humanity, including rape and sexual violence, extermination, murder, and taking hostages.

    The move, though largely symbolic, has created an international stir. International forces supporting Israel have reacted with outrage, including US President Biden, who said in a statement that “The ICC prosecutor’s application for arrest warrants against Israeli leaders is outrageous.”

    “Let me be clear: whatever this prosecutor might imply, there is no equivalence—none—between Israel and Hamas. We will always stand with Israel against threats to its security,” Biden said. 

    The Palestinian resistance movements and largely movements for Palestinian liberation issued different reactions. Mustafa Barghouti, secretary-general of the Palestinian National Initiative, was largely positive in his reaction, stating, “We consider this to be the first step towards condemning the crimes of genocide committed by the rulers and army of Israel against the Palestinian people in Gaza and holding them accountable for committing these crimes according to international law and international humanitarian law.”

    Hamas denounced the actions against its own leaders. “The Public Prosecutor should have arrest and detention orders against all officials from the occupation leaders who gave orders, and soldiers who participated in committing crimes,” the resistance organization stated. “The Hamas movement strongly denounces the attempts of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court to equate the victim with the executioner by issuing arrest warrants against a number of Palestinian resistance leaders, without a legal basis, in violation of the international conventions and resolutions that gave the Palestinian people and all the peoples of the world under occupation the right to resist the occupation in all forms, including armed resistance, especially as stipulated in Article 51 of the United Nations Charter.”

    Others have similarly criticized the move based on the equivalency Khan draws between Hamas and Israel, especially since many have pointed out inconsistencies in accusations made against Hamas forces of rape. Meanwhile, Israeli forces have many credible accusations of rape made against them. Khan has a history of siding with imperialist forces during his time as ICC prosecutor, including excluding US troops from a probe into war crimes in Afghanistan.

    Original article republished from peoples’ dispatch under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 (CC BY-SA) license.

  • Killing humanitarian workers as a strategy: Israel’s endgame in Gaza

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    https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/killing-humanitarian-workers-strategy-israels-endgame-gaza

    TARGETING AID: World Central Kitchen vehicle hit in an Israeli airstrike in Deir al Balah, Gaza Strip, on Tuesday, April 2 2024

    RAMZY BAROUD explains that Israel isn’t making mistakes, even due to callous carelessness — killing aid workers is part of a wider plan to make life in northern Gaza impossible, to facilitate ethnic cleansing

    ISRAEL described its clearly deliberate killing of seven humanitarian aid workers on April 1 as a “grave mistake,” a “tragic event” that “happens in war.”

    Israel is, obviously, lying. This entire so-called war — actually genocide — in Gaza has been based on a series of lies, some of which Israel continues to peddle.

    For some, in the mainstream media, it took months to accept the obvious fact that Israel has been lying about the events that led to the war and the military objectives of its constant targeting of hospitals, schools, shelters and other civilian facilities.

    So, it was only logical for Israel to lie about killing the six internationals, and their Palestinian driver, of the World Central Kitchen (WCK). Notwithstanding an event as atrocious as this, it is implausible for Israel to start telling the truth now.

    Luckily, few seem to believe Israel’s version regarding WCK, or its continued massacres elsewhere in Gaza. Israel “cannot credibly investigate its own failure in Gaza,” the US-based NGO said in a statement on April 5.

    The issue of targeting these internationals, however, has to be placed within a larger context.

    Israel was hardly secretive about its intention to deny Palestinians even the most basic necessities of survival in Gaza, epitomised in the words of Israeli Minister of Defence Yoav Gallant on October 9: “There will be no electricity, no food, no fuel, everything is closed.”

    Initially, this statement, and many others, were understood at the time to be an outcome of Israel’s desire to punish Palestinians for the October 7 al-Aqsa Flood operation, by resorting to its typical tactic of collective punishment.

    With time, however, and based on statements made by other Israeli officials, it became clear that Israel wanted to ethnically cleanse Palestinians altogether.

    …

    https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/killing-humanitarian-workers-strategy-israels-endgame-gaza