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Minister: Israel’s forcible displacement of Palestinians crime against humanity

Monday, 09 May 2022 5:41 PM [ Last Update: Monday, 09 May 2022 5:56 PM ]

The file photo by Wafa news agency shows activists demonstrating against forced displacement of Palestinians across the occupied West Bank.

A senior Palestinian official says forcible displacement of citizens by the Israeli regime and the approval of the demolition of at least a dozen villages in the occupied West Bank amount to crimes against humanity.

Minister of Justice Muhammad Shalaldeh during a press briefing on Monday called on the chief prosecutor of The Hague-based International Criminal Court (ICC), Karim Khan, to open an immediate investigation into all these violations.

“The international community should act, particularly at the level of the international criminal justice represented by the International Criminal Court, to hold accountable and prosecute those who commit these crimes that amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity, and to file law cases against them, starting with the Israeli prime minister all the way to any settler or soldier,” said the Ramallah-based PA minister.

“Our people have the right, based on the principles and rules of international law, to resist in matters related to the principle of the right to self-determination to end the occupation,” he added.

Shalaldeh said as part of his ministry’s duty to help the citizens to file legal cases against the Tel Aviv regime and extremist settlers in order to hold Israel legally accountable for its violent actions.

In this file picture, a demonstrator poses with a Palestinian flag outside the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague, the Netherlands, on November 29, 2019. (File photo by AP)

Israeli forces, in Masafer Yatta, south of al-Khalil (Hebron), forcibly took away several citizens and the approval of the demolition of 12 villages there.

Elsewhere in his remarks, the minister strongly denounced a recent ruling by the so-called Israeli High Court upholding a decision to remove at least a dozen Palestinian villages in Masafer Yatta in order to build and expand settlements.

The UN Security Council has in several resolutions condemned the Tel Aviv regime’s settlement activities in the occupied Palestinian lands.

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

The developments come at a time Palestinians mark the 74th anniversary of their Nakba Day. The day refers to the occasion when the Israeli entity proclaimed existence in the occupied Palestinian territories in mid-May 1948 and drove hundreds of thousands of Palestinians out of their homeland. Israelis celebrated the occasion on May 4-5 this year.

Nakba Day is set as May 15 every year, but Israelis celebrate what they call their "Independence Day" in accordance with the Hebrew calendar.

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