Ibn_hassan
Servant of Allah
GENEVA, 20 January 2008 — Israel’s targeting of a Hamas government office which caused serious casualties at a nearby wedding party was a “war crime” and those responsible should be punished, a United Nations official said yesterday.
John Dugard, UN special rapporteur on the human rights situation in the occupied territories, slammed the killing of Palestinians in other attacks and the closing of border crossings.
“Those responsible for such cowardly action are guilty of serious war crimes and should be prosecuted and punished for their crimes,” Dugard said.
“Recent action violates the strict prohibition on collective punishment contained in the Fourth Geneva Convention,” said Dugard in the statement put out by the UN Human Rights Commission. “It violates one of the basic principles of international humanitarian law that military action must distinguish between military and civilian targets.”
He said that “Israel must have known” about the wedding party in the Gaza Strip close to the Interior Ministry when it launched missiles at the building on Friday.
The massive airstrike destroyed the ministry building, sending a tide of shrapnel crashing against adjacent apartment buildings and killing a 47-year-old woman.
Around 50 people were wounded in the blast, including several children. At least 30 of the victims had been attending the wedding party near the building.
“The killing of some 40 Palestinians in Gaza in the past week, the targeting of a government office near a wedding party venue with what must have been foreseen loss of life and injury to many civilians, and the closure of all crossings into Gaza raise very serious questions about Israel’s respect for international law and its commitment to the peace process,” Dugard said in a statement.
The United States and other participants in the Annapolis conference in November to relaunch the Middle East peace process “are under both a legal and a moral obligation to compel Israel to cease its actions against Gaza and to restore confidence in the peace process, ensure respect for international law and protect civilian life,” he said.
In Cairo, Arab League chief Amr Moussa condemned the attacks on Gaza, saying they could affect current Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations.
Moussa “strongly condemns the actions of the occupying Israeli authorities, including killings, destruction and the threat of death to more than 1.5 million people in Gaza,” according to a League statement.
He urged the so-called international Quartet — made up of the United Nations, European Union, Russia and the United States — to exert pressure on Israel.
“The Quartet must immediately move to stop the series of aggressions and to allow humanitarian aid to enter Gaza in order to end the humanitarian crisis ... and to avoid the collapse of current Palestinian-Israeli talks,” Moussa said.
In Jeddah, the 57-nation Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) called on the United Nations to intervene to stop the bloodshed in Gaza.
OIC Secretary-General Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu accused the Israeli military of “committing successive massacres in the Gaza Strip, in which civilians were killed.” He called upon the United Nations and its Security Council to “assume their responsibilities and work to end the ongoing aggression against the Palestinian people and to end the arbitrary blockade of the Gaza Strip”.
John Dugard, UN special rapporteur on the human rights situation in the occupied territories, slammed the killing of Palestinians in other attacks and the closing of border crossings.
“Those responsible for such cowardly action are guilty of serious war crimes and should be prosecuted and punished for their crimes,” Dugard said.
“Recent action violates the strict prohibition on collective punishment contained in the Fourth Geneva Convention,” said Dugard in the statement put out by the UN Human Rights Commission. “It violates one of the basic principles of international humanitarian law that military action must distinguish between military and civilian targets.”
He said that “Israel must have known” about the wedding party in the Gaza Strip close to the Interior Ministry when it launched missiles at the building on Friday.
The massive airstrike destroyed the ministry building, sending a tide of shrapnel crashing against adjacent apartment buildings and killing a 47-year-old woman.
Around 50 people were wounded in the blast, including several children. At least 30 of the victims had been attending the wedding party near the building.
“The killing of some 40 Palestinians in Gaza in the past week, the targeting of a government office near a wedding party venue with what must have been foreseen loss of life and injury to many civilians, and the closure of all crossings into Gaza raise very serious questions about Israel’s respect for international law and its commitment to the peace process,” Dugard said in a statement.
The United States and other participants in the Annapolis conference in November to relaunch the Middle East peace process “are under both a legal and a moral obligation to compel Israel to cease its actions against Gaza and to restore confidence in the peace process, ensure respect for international law and protect civilian life,” he said.
In Cairo, Arab League chief Amr Moussa condemned the attacks on Gaza, saying they could affect current Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations.
Moussa “strongly condemns the actions of the occupying Israeli authorities, including killings, destruction and the threat of death to more than 1.5 million people in Gaza,” according to a League statement.
He urged the so-called international Quartet — made up of the United Nations, European Union, Russia and the United States — to exert pressure on Israel.
“The Quartet must immediately move to stop the series of aggressions and to allow humanitarian aid to enter Gaza in order to end the humanitarian crisis ... and to avoid the collapse of current Palestinian-Israeli talks,” Moussa said.
In Jeddah, the 57-nation Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) called on the United Nations to intervene to stop the bloodshed in Gaza.
OIC Secretary-General Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu accused the Israeli military of “committing successive massacres in the Gaza Strip, in which civilians were killed.” He called upon the United Nations and its Security Council to “assume their responsibilities and work to end the ongoing aggression against the Palestinian people and to end the arbitrary blockade of the Gaza Strip”.
