The Palestinian Center for Human Rights (PCHR) confirmed that six legal memorandums have been submitted to the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague on Israel’s war crimes against Palestinians in the Occupied Territories.
“The ICC was also addressed seven times on the subject by a crew of Palestinian and international lawyers,” PIC quoted PCHR as saying.
The Center held a discussion in Gaza with national and media figures on the situation of human rights in the occupied Palestinian territories and the efforts made abroad to prosecute Israeli war criminals.
خلال لقاء حواري في خان يونس، الصوراني: 6 مذكرات أمام #الجنائية_الدولية لملاحقة مجرمي الحرب الإسرائيليين#PCHRhttps://t.co/O2n1gsBR7N pic.twitter.com/hPwp0ZB4J4
— PCHR (@pchrgaza) March 16, 2017
(Translation: PCHR: during a meeting held in Khan Younis: Al-Sourani, 6 war crimes filed to pursue Israeli war criminals).
During the meeting, PCHR director Raji al-Surani expressed hope that “the court would take a clear and final decision in the current year with regard to accepting the lawsuits filed on behalf of Palestinian victims.”
Surani said the “ICC received legal papers on different war crimes committed by Israel, as an occupying power, against the Palestinians, including its wars and blockade on Gaza and its human rights violations resulting from its settlement activities in the occupied Palestinian territories.”
(PIC, PC, Social Media)
Palestinian leaders should be seeking through international tribunals and courts of justice the tax monies paid on property built on Palestinian territory, as well as income taxes on the foreign residents residing in occupied Palestine; it is possible to make claims and demands on such funds without necessarily recognizing such buildings as legally permitted structures or their residents as legitimate immigrants. It is simply a matter of asserting Palestinian territorial integrity and making claims to tax funds which have been in a real sense unlawfully appropriated. In all likelihood an international tribunal would rule in favor of Palestine, making the settlements less politically popular.