Ninety organizations, mainly French, decided to prosecute Israel at the
International Court for committing War Crimes against the Palestinian
people in the Gaza Strip as the Israeli offensive left more than 1033
Palestinians dead, and over 4580 wounded in its first two weeks,

Mohammad Al Araby – Brussels

The French
Lamond Newspaper reported that the organizations prosecuting Israel in
the International Court are pro-Palestinian and that this step comes as
several Arab and international organizations are also moving towards
filing lawsuit against Israel for war crimes against the unarmed
Palestinian civilians in the Gaza Strip, especially since Israel is
using internationally banned weapons in its war such as White
Phosphorus.

A French lawyer who phrased the lawsuit said that
the eight article of the Rome Conventions specifies a war crime as “a
deliberate act that aims at harming civilians and causing great
suffering, harming them physically, destroying their property in a way
that cannot be justified”.

The lawyer, Jill Devier, said that a
country cannot justify its war crimes by saying that it was subjected
to missile fire “even if the Palestinian homemade shells fired into
Israel also constitute a war crime”.

He added that the lawsuit against Israel is well supported by two main legal basis;

1.
The inequivalent Israel attack against Gaza, as it includes shelling
heavily populated areas. He said that this issue was also raised at the
Security Council on December 31.

2. The targets of the Israeli
shelling were mainly civilian, as most of the casualties are children
and women, and the army also shelled governmental facilities, mosques,
sport clubs, and a building which had journalists on its rooftop.

Responding
to a question regarding the chances of winning the lawsuit especially
since it is prosecuting figures in a country that does not recognize
the international court, Devier said that this issue makes the case
more difficult but added that several Israeli officials have dual
citizenships and could be prosecuted in the countries of their second
citizenship.

Another possibility, he added, is that the United
Nations can form special courts or the security council can call for a
lawsuit against Israel, yet he said that the two options are hard to
achieve under the current international situation, most likely
referring to the biased US government support to Israel.

The
number of Palestinians killed in the ongoing Israeli offensive and
illegal war against Gaza exceeded 1000, while at least 4,418 were
wounded. Most of the casualties are women, elderly and children.