Gazans hope ICC will make 'Israel pay'

Ahed Bakr, second from left, the father of a Palestinian child who was killed on a beach in Gaza after an Israeli military strike. Palestinians formally gained membership to the International CriminalShow more

GAZA CITY, PALESTINIAN TERRITORIES // Holding Israel accountable. This is what Yasser Al Qassas and thousands of Gazans hope to see with the Palestinian accession to the International Criminal Court on Wednesday.

Palestinians joined the ICC with the goal of trying Israeli leaders for alleged war crimes in the fighting in and around the Gaza Strip in summer 2014, and alleged crimes relating to the occupation of the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

Mr Al Qassas is one of the many Palestinians who lost family members during the July to August war, started by Israel to end rocket attacks at its territory and destroy tunnels from Gaza.

Approximately 2,200 Palestinians were killed, of whom 1,500 were civilians, according to the United Nations.

On the Israeli side 73 people were killed – 67 of them soldiers.

A July 21 airstrike on a five-storey building west of Gaza City demolished Mr Al Qassas’s home.

“Israel killed my pregnant wife and four of my daughters, in addition to five other family members, and it should pay for this at the ICC,” said the unemployed 40-year-old.

The Palestinians have formed a committee to oversee cases to lodge with the ICC as part of a “national effort” to end Israeli “impunity” including a Gaza committee and another for settlements.

Chief negotiator Saeb Erakat will oversee the mechanism, which includes various figures from the Palestinian political scene, universities and human rights organisations, an official said.

The effort relies heavily on organisations that defend Palestinian rights and collect incriminating evidence.

Mr Al Qassas approached several of them.

Ahed Bakr went to Al Mezan Centre for Human Rights in Gaza to file a complaint against Israel after a strike killed his son, grandson and nephews as they played on the beach in Gaza City on July 16.

“I demand the president [Mahmoud Abbas] files our case against the terrorist Israel with the ICC to get justice for our children,” the 55-year-old fisherman said.

“Israel killed our children on purpose, it wasn’t just one rocket, but four,” he said. “The whole world saw this live.”

“I will never rest until I see Israeli leaders behind bars.”

The Israeli army is holding its own investigations, with approximately 80 currently open.

Among the cases are the shelling of a UN school on July 24 that medics said killed at least 15 people, and the July 16 beach bombing which killed four children.

To Israel’s mind, Hamas – the armed movement in de facto control of the Gaza Strip – is guilty of war crimes for launching rockets at Israeli civilians and using Palestinians as human shields.

In a recent report, Amnesty International accused Palestinian armed groups of war crimes for indiscriminate rocket and mortar attacks that killed civilians in both Israel and Gaza.

In earlier reports the rights group also accused Israel of war crimes.

Palestinians do not consider Israeli investigations credible.

“We have documented hundreds of cases in which Israelis are liable to prosecution for war crimes,” Issam Younis, director of Al Mezan in Gaza, said.

Mr Younis, a member of the ICC committee, said the aim of joining up was to bring accountability to “a state that thinks it’s above the law”.

Among the cases brought before Al Mezan were the July 12 bombing that hit a centre for the handicapped in the northern town of Beit Lahiya.

Ola Washahi, 30, and Suha Abu Saada, 47, who had severe physical and mental disabilities, were killed in the strike, which demolished the facility.

Its director Jamila Alaywa turned to Al Mezan.

“We demand justice, even if it takes years at the court,” she said. “We are not in a hurry.”

* Agence France-Presse