Ramallah: Human Rights and Democracy Media Center- SHAMS, warns against the insistence of the occupation to proceed in the genocide war, within the stumbling of the negotiations to reach a ceasefire, in the Gaza Strip. The Occupation is making use of international and regional circumstances to commit more genocide crimes against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. All the diplomatic efforts failed in imposing a ceasefire and ending the war. Additionally, the Israeli authorities refused to adhere to the decisions of the International Court of Justice and the temporary measures that the court called for. The Israeli government refused to adhere to the United Nations Security Council Resolution and the other international demands that requested ending the war and allowing the entry of humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip.
SHAMS Center deplores the American stance that is biased clearly to the occupation and grants the Israeli prime minister the green light to proceed with the genocide crimes against Palestinians. The American Administration is providing the occupation with ships of weapons and lethal on an hourly basis. Moreover, America is providing the occupation with political coverage in front of international institutions, mainly in the United Nations Security Council. Furthermore, the American government is pressing on the international judicial institutions, including the International Criminal Court, to ban issuing interrogation memos against Israeli war criminals. Moreover, it threatens to impose sanctions on the ICC and its magistrates and employees in case interrogation memos are issued against Israeli war criminals. SHAMS Center raises the question of when the international consciousness will awaken while Israel proceeds to apply excessive force against Palestinians and insists on the genocide war against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.
SHAMS Center affirms that the practices of the occupation in the Gaza Strip, the crimes against women, children, and elderly people, and the rejection of the international efforts to end the war, is a clear political crime and ignorance of the International Community’s will. The Israeli crimes represent a profound violation of both international law and international human rights law. In particular, the occupation violates the Geneva Fourth Convention (dated 12/8/1949). The Convention gives protection for civilians under war and armed conflicts and calls upon neutralizing them from hostile attacks in conflicted areas. Article 15 of the mentioned Convention states to protect: “civilian persons who take no part in hostilities, and who, while they reside in the zones, perform no work of a military character”. Additionally, the Israeli crimes violate Article 49 of the same Convention, which states: “Individual or mass forcible transfers, as well as deportations of protected persons from occupied territory to the territory of the Occupying Power or to that of any other country, occupied or not, are prohibited, regardless of their motive”. The Israeli occupation violates the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, which came entry in force on (9/12/1948), where Article 2 of the Convention states: “In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:(a) Killing members of the group; (b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; (c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; (d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; (e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group”. Similarly, the Occupation State violated the Rome Statute where Article 6 states: For the purpose of this Statute, “genocide” means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such: (a) Killing members of the group; (b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; (c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; (d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; (e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group”.
SHAMS Center calls on the UN Security Council, the High Contracting Parties to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, the High Contracting Parties to the Geneva Conventions, the UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights, the International Red Cross, and governmental and non-governmental institutions to urgently intervene and fulfill their legal, humanitarian, and moral obligations. The Center urges them to compel the occupation to halt the genocidal war crimes targeting civilians in the Gaza Strip and to hold accountable those who defy the will of the international community and fail to comply with the resolutions and recommendations issued by the United Nations and its institutions, particularly those of the UN Security Council and the International Court of Justice regarding the cessation of war in the Gaza Strip.