Hamas Seeks ICC Action against Israel's 16-Year-Long Blockade on Gaza: Report
The complaint says the occupying regime is committing war crime and crime against humanity against Gazans through the ongoing blockade, and has been filed by Hamas' lawmakers, Lebanon's al-Mayadeen satellite news channel reported on its website on Tuesday, citing various news outlets.
The tribunal will receive the complaint from French lawyer Gilles Duvier, the channel said, citing Huda Naim, head of the Human Rights Committee in the Palestinian Legislative Council in the Gaza Strip.
"We are in a comprehensive battle with a criminal, colonial, settler occupation, which includes all arenas and fields, and the legal battle is one of the most important tools, because the occupation depends for its survival on military force and international support and cover," Naim said.
She said the complaint aims "to criminalize the Israeli occupation for its grave violations against the Palestinian people, especially the crime of blockade, and its flagrant violations of laws and charters."
"There is a great need to exert every effort to strengthen the Palestinian narrative, reveal the fascist truth of the occupation, and expose its crimes to international public opinion," the Palestinian official stated.
Israel seized Gaza and the nearby Palestinian territory of the West Bank in a war in 1967 that was heavily backed by the West.
The regime pulled out its troops from Gaza in 2005, but has been imposing a crippling land, air, and sea blockade on the territory that has turned it into the world's largest open-air prison.
The United Nations says that due to the siege, about 2.1 million Palestinians in the besieged sliver are trapped, with most of them unable to access the rest of the occupied Palestinian territories and the outside world.
Source: Agencies
