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After Palestine Overcomes U.S.-Israeli Pressure and Joins ICC, Will Gaza’s Victims See Justice?
A new report from the Israeli group Breaking the Silence on Israel’s policy of indiscriminate fire during the 2014 Gaza assault comes just a week after a United Nations probe confirmed Israeli forces conducted direct attacks on its facilities in Gaza during last summer’s offensive. The attacks took place despite repeated notifications with the GPS coordinates of U.N. sites to Israeli forces. Palestinians have vowed to bring the findings to the International Criminal Court, which it officially joined last month. We discuss the implications of Palestine’s accession to the ICC with two guests: Ambassador Nabil Abuznaid, head of the Palestinian Mission to the Netherlands, and John Dugard, former U.N. special rapporteur on human rights in the Palestinian territories and emeritus professor of international law at the University of Leiden in the Netherlands.
TRANSCRIPT
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: The Breaking the Silence report on Israel’s “policy of indiscriminate fire” during the 2014 Gaza assault is being published just a week after a United Nations probe confirmed Israeli forces conducted direct attacks on United Nations facilities in Gaza, killing at least 44 Palestinians sheltering at those sites during last summer’s offensive. The attacks took place despite repeated notifications to Israeli forces of the GPS coordinates of U.N. sites.
AMY GOODMAN: Palestinians have vowed to bring the findings to the International Criminal Court, which it officially joined last month. Last week, while we were at The Hague, I spoke to two guests about the implications of Palestine’s accession to the International Criminal Court. Ambassador Nabil Abuznaid is the head of the Palestinian Mission to the Netherlands. And John Dugard is the former U.N. special rapporteur on human rights in the Palestinian territories, now emeritus professor of international law at University of Leiden in the Netherlands. He was born in South Africa. I started by asking Ambassador Abuznaid about the significance of Palestine becoming the newest member of the International Criminal Court.
NABIL ABUZNAID: Well, first, I think the international community should encourage Palestine and congratulate Palestine for joining the international court, because we accepted to live under international law. We are a peace-abiding nation. And we really tried politically to end the occupation. We tried by all means to end it. But, unfortunate, we were forced to seek justice through the international court, which hopefully could stop the Israeli aggressions against our people, against our lands, so we can live free and in dignity in our homeland.
Source: www.democracynow.org