ICC Prosecutor: The Demolition of Khan al-Ahmar Bedouin Community Is a War Crime Committed by Israel
The prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, Fatou Bensouda, released a statement on Wednesday, with regard to Palestine. She refers to the Bedouin community of Khan al-Ahmar, stating that “extensive destruction of property without military necessity, as well as population transfers in an occupied territory constitute war crimes under the Rome Statute.”
She expressed her concern for the planned eviction, and displacement of the nearly two hundred residents of Khan al-Ahmar.
The following are quotes taken from the International Criminal Court:
Article 8
War Crimes
War Crimes
Article 8 (2)(a)(iv) : Extensive destruction and appropriation of property, not justified by military necessity, and carried out unlawfully and wantonly.
Article 8 (2)(b)(vii) : Attacking or bombardment by whatever means, towns, villages, dwellings or buildings which are undefended and which are not military objectives.
Article 8 (2)(b)(viii) : The transfer, directly or indirectly, by the occupying power of parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies, or the deportation or transfer of all or parts of the population of the occupied territory within or outside this territory.
The prosecutor also expressed alarm at the violence along the Gaza border with Israel, which she claims is “perpetrated by both sides,” and although the case is only preliminary, she is “watching the situation in Palestine closely”. In the context go the Gaza protests and Israel’s response, we can look at the Geneva Conventions, and see more of Israel’s crimes.
Article 8 (2)(b)(xviii) : Employing asphyxiating, poisonous or other gases, and all analogous liquids, materials or devices.
Article 8 (2)(b)(xix) : Employing bullets which expand or flatten easily in the human body, such as bullets with a hard envelope which does not entirely cover the core or is pierced with incisions.
Article 8 (2)(b)(xx) : Employing weapons, projectiles and materials and methods of warfare that are of a nature to cause superfluous injury or unnecessary suffering or which are inherently indiscriminate in violation of the international law of armed conflict.
Also in the context of the Gaza protests, as well as well as the nearly 12 year blockade imposed on Gaza by Israel.
Article 6
Genocide
Genocide
Article 6 (a) : Killing members of the group.
Article 6 (b) : Causing serious bodily or mental harm to the members of the group.
Article 6 (c) : Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about it’s physical destruction in whole or in part.
According to WAFA, Mr. Saeb Erekat, the Secretary General of the Executive Committee of Palestine Liberation Organization, sent a letter to the prosecutor and related more evidence against Israel with regards to the historical and “ongoing colonial settlement activity in the Palestinian city of Hebron.”
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Featured image is from IMEMC.
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