'Israelis can't escape crime charges'

Mon, 26 Jan 2009 09:48:14 GMT | PressTV

Palestinian Foreign Minister Riyad al-Malki

The Palestinian FM deflates Israeli cabinet's pledge to provide legal protection to military and civilian personnel involved in Gaza raid.

Palestinian Foreign Minister Riyad al-Malki made the comments a day after Israeli Prime Minster Ehud Olmert defended the 23-day aggression in the Gaza Strip and pledged to protect the military against international calls for an investigation of potential war crimes.

"The soldiers and commanders who were sent on missions in Gaza must know that they are safe from various tribunals and that the state of Israel will assist them on this issue and defend them," Olmert said before his weekly Cabinet meeting in Jerusalem on Sunday.

At talks in Brussels with European Union ministers, al-Malki stated that Olmert's pledge of protection concerning foreign prosecution over alleged war crimes can in no way prevent such legal action.

"I think the decision taken by Israeli government is not going to prevent all these governments and human right organizations in world to really see through and make a legal case against all Israeli leaders for the death in Gaza," al-Malki said.

"It does not mean there is immunity against legal actions," al-Malki said as he met with counterparts from the European Union, Egypt, Turkey and Jordan. He added, "I think more of such efforts will be seen also in the near future.''

Israel is concerned that its officers could be subject to international prosecution because of the alleged use of illegal weapons including white phosphorus and depleted uranium and the killings of a large number of civilian in the Palestinian coastal silver.

Israel's use of the illegal weapons on the civilian population of Gaza first came to light when foreign doctors working in Gaza hospitals told Press TV that they have found strange burns and traces of depleted uranium in some Gaza residents wounded in Israel's ground offensive on the strip.

The assault killed over 1,330 Palestinians with 460 of them children. In addition to the civilian death toll, Israel faces war crimes charges because of the use of white phosphorous in Gaza and the shelling of UN schools and installations that were serving as shelters.

Israel braces for war crime charges

Fri, 23 Jan 2009 13:10:49 GMT | PressTV

UN investigator Richard Falk says Israeli crimes in Gaza are reminiscent of those committed against the Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto.

Israel prepares to respond to possible war crimes charges after its soldiers admitted to having used chemical weapons against Gazans.

Israeli government sources revealed on Friday that Prime Minister Ehud Olmert had tasked an inter-ministerial team to clear Tel Aviv of possible war crimes charges relating to its three-week-long assault on Gaza.

Israeli Justice Minister Daniel Friedman will spearhead the efforts to coordinate a legal defense for civilians and the military amid world condemnation of Tel Aviv's war on Gaza.

Israel moved close to being prosecuted for war crimes after Norwegian medical experts found traces of depleted uranium in Gaza victims, suggesting that Israel used the illegal weapons in its war on the densely-populated territory.

The UN nuclear watchdog said on Wednesday that it would open an investigation into Israel's alleged use of depleted uranium weapons, which are listed as 'illegal weapons of mass destruction' in the Geneva Convention.

The case for Israeli war crimes became stronger on Thursday when the Israeli military admitted that it pounded the Palestinian coast with at least twenty phosphorus bombs during the offensive.

White phosphorus, classified as a 'chemical weapon' by the US intelligence, is a highly-incendiary substance that bursts into all-consuming flames that cannot be extinguished with water, burning flesh to the bone and often leading to death.

Under the Geneva Treaty of 1980, the use of white phosphorous as a weapon is prohibited.

Human rights group Amnesty International has also touched on the issue, saying that Tel Aviv used white phosphorus munitions "indiscriminately and illegally" in overcrowded areas of Gaza.

"The repeated use [of White Phosphorus] in this manner, despite evidence of its indiscriminate effects and its toll on civilians, is a war crime," said Donatella Rovera of the Amnesty International.

Eight Israeli human rights groups have also called for an investigation into the offensive -- which has left some 1,340 people dead and thousands of others hospitalized.

UN special rapporteur for the Palestinian territories, Richard Falk, meanwhile, said Thursday that there is more than enough evidence that Israel committed war crimes in the strip.

According to Falk, the crimes committed in Gaza are clearly reminiscent of "the worst kind of international memories of the Warsaw Ghetto", which included the starvation and murder of Polish Jews by Nazi Germany in World War II.

Israel launched its Operation Cast Lead on December 27 to allegedly defend its territories from Hamas rockets, which were fired in retaliation for Israel's defiance of a ceasefire that had previously been in place.

The UN Charter and international law, however, do not give Israel the legal foundation for claiming self-defense in the case of the Gazans.