Arab League urges ICC to pursue probe of Israeli war crimes

The Arab League Ministerial Council has called on the International Criminal Court (ICC) to proceed with its investigation into the war crimes and crimes against humanity committed by the Israeli regime against the defenseless Palestinian people.

In a resolution issued at the 157th ordinary session of the council in Cairo on Wednesday, the participants urged The Hague-based court to probe Israeli apartheid policies such as the forced displacement of Palestinians from their homes in occupied East al-Quds and the demolition of their houses.

The council also stressed the importance of the reports by international human rights organizations that expose, with evidence, the Israeli apartheid against the Palestinian nation.

It said that Israel imposes apartheid through systematic measures with the objective of persecuting, suppressing, dominating, and dispersing the Palestinians, while seeking to undermine their freedom of movement and family life through unlawful killing, administrative detention, and torture.

The Tel Aviv regime deprives the Palestinians of their basic rights, curbs the development of their economy and expropriates their land and property, according the resolution.

Such racist practices constitute a crime against humanity and a flagrant violation of relevant international laws, including the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, the International Convention for the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid, and the Rome Statute of the ICC.

The council also called on the world’s countries and international organizations to assume their responsibilities and to confront the Israeli policies that hinder the establishment of a sovereign Palestinian state and eliminate the so-called two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Palestine urges UNSC to take practical steps against Israeli apartheid

Palestine

Israel occupied the West Bank and East al-Quds during the Six-Day War in 1967. It later annexed East al-Quds in a move not recognized by the international community.

Palestinians want the West Bank as part of a future independent Palestinian state with East al-Quds as its capital.

Elsewhere in their resolution, the Arab foreign ministers warned against tensions in East al-Quds, underlining the need for Israel to assume its responsibilities as an occupying power and maintain calm on the ground.

Reiterating that East al-Quds is the capital of Palestine, they condemned any Israeli attempt to undermine the Palestinian sovereignty over the holy city, change its demographic structure and isolate it from its Palestinian surroundings.

They further rejected any move meant to liquidate the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA) and redefine the legal status of Palestinian refugees in a bid to prevent their return to their homeland.

The international community, they added, must work on enabling the Palestinian people to control all their resources and exercise their right to development over their entire land occupied in 1967 and territorial waters.

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