The UK parliament will have to consider a petition for the arrest of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Britain since the number of its signatures has crossed well above the 100,000 mark needed for a parliamentary debate.
The petition put up on the parliament website by British citizen Damian Moran says, “Benjamin Netanyahu is to hold talks in London this September. Under international law he should be arrested for war crimes upon arrival in the UK for the massacre of over 2000 civilians in 2014.”
The UK parliament says it considers all petitions that get more than 100,000 signatures for a debate.
Now it notes that it is “waiting for 1 day for a debate date.”
This is while the British government has already dismissed the petition and announced on the same webpage that “under UK and international law, visiting heads of foreign governments, such as Prime Minister Netanyahu, have immunity from legal process, and cannot be arrested or detained.”
However, the petition is still gathering support for Netanyahu’s arrest during his planned visit to the UK next week.
The initiator of the petition has told Press TV that Netanyahu should not be allowed to walk around freely after Israel’s bloody war of the 2014 summer in the Gaza Strip.
Meanwhile, the UK government will reportedly heighten security ahead of Netanyahu’s trip over fears of protests against the Israeli regime.
Israel unleashed its military onslaught on the impoverished Gaza Strip in early July 2014. The offensive ended on August 26, 2014, with a truce that went into effect following indirect negotiations between representatives from Palestinian resistance movement Hamas and Israeli regime in the Egyptian capital, Cairo.
Nearly 2,200 Palestinians, including 577 children, lost their lives in Israel’s war. Over 11,100 others – including 3,374 children, 2,088 women and 410 elderly people – also sustained injuries.