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Israeli High Crimes Against Humanity

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Israeli High Crimes Against Humanity

by Stephen Lendman (stephenlendman.org - Home - Stephen Lendman)

Longstanding Israeli brutality against Palestinians constitutes what the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC) calls “crimes against humanity.” 

They include murder, extermination, enslavement, forcible deportations, imprisonment or deprivation of freedoms in violation of international law, torture, rape and related offenses, unjustifiable persecution, forced disappearances, apartheid, and/or other inhumane acts, causing great suffering, bodily injury or serious trauma.

Israel is guilty on all of the above counts, bloody Monday in Gaza the latest example of its ruthlessness - a Ziofascist gangster state masquerading as democratic.

Monday’s horrendous toll in Gaza included 59 Palestinian men, women and children murdered in cold blood (including an 8-month-old baby from toxic tear gas inhalation), another 2,700 injured, scores seriously, countless numbers permanently disabled - for the “crime” of protesting peacefully against US-supported Israeli viciousness, causing a grave humanitarian crisis under virtual concentration camp prison conditions.

Israel and Washington despicably blamed Gazans for high crimes committed against them. An IDF spokesman accused Hamas of sending terror cells to breach the border fence to kidnap Israeli soldiers - a bald-faced lie.

No one directed Gazans to do anything. They came out voluntarily en masse, protesting peacefully against Israeli viciousness.

On Monday and on Great March of Return Friday protests since March 30, no Israeli soldiers or civilians were harmed. No Palestinian attacks against Israeli forces occurred, no riots, as falsely claimed.

Palestinian Center for Human Rights’ fieldworkers explained no Gazans were armed with guns or other weapons.

The PCHR issued a Monday statement, condemning “Israeli use excessive lethal force against the civilian demonstrators along the eastern and northern borders of the Gaza Strip as they continued to fire heavily live bullets, tear gas canisters and artillery shells, inflecting many civilian casualties” - 12 medical personnel and 8 journalists among them.

IDF General Ronen Manelis contemptibly claimed “(w)e are protecting our home,” outrageously blaming Hamas for Israeli high crimes, threatening air attacks and possible cross-border incursions if protests continue.

Israel bears full responsibility for bloody Monday, bloody Fridays preceding it, along with 11 years of illegally blockading Gaza - ruthless high crimes against humanity, as well as three preemptive wars of aggression on the Strip since December 2008.

On Monday, Washington blocked a Security Council statement, calling for a transparent probe into violence along the Israeli/Gaza border.

South Africa and Turkey responded to Monday’s massacre by recalling their ambassadors to Israel for consultations. 

The international community failed to hold the Netanyahu regime responsible for mass murder.

Pro-Western UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said he was “profoundly alarmed and concerned by the sharp escalation of violence and the number of Palestinians killed and injured in the Gaza protests” - disgracefully calling for restraint on both sides, showing “profound” indifference to Palestinian suffering.

Deputy White House press secretary Raj Shah disgracefully blamed Hamas for Monday’s mass slaughter - refusing to demand Israel show restraint in response to peaceful Palestinian protests.

EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini failed to condemn Israeli mass murder, saying only “Israel must respect the right to peaceful protest and the principle of proportionality in the use of force” - showing indifference to long-suffering Palestinians, notably Gazans.

UK PM Theresa May was no different, merely saying “(w)e are concerned by the reports of violence and loss of life in Gaza.”

Germany’s Foreign Ministry failed to condemn Monday’s mass slaughter, saying only it was “shocked and deeply concerned,” disgracefully adding:

“Israel has the right to defend itself and to secure the fence against violent incursion.” There was none nor earlier.

Russia’s Sergey Lavrov failed to condemn Israeli violence, saying “(w)e expressed common concern over the situation in the Palestinian territories, in particular, in the Gaza Strip,” adding:

“We reiterated commitment to the resolutions of the United Nations Security Council and General Assembly, to the principles of the Arab Peace Initiative.”

China’s Xinhua news agency failed to condemn Israel mass slaughter in a statement, saying “Palestinians clashed with Israeli troops near the Gaza-Israel border, east of Gaza City, on May 14, 2018.” 

“A daylong of violent confrontations between Palestinian protesters and Israeli soldiers in eastern Gaza Strip close to the border with Israel left at least 55 Palestinians killed and 2,771 injured, said medical sources.”

Iran responded responsibly, cabinet spokesman Mohammad Bagher Nobakht saying the following:

“Certainly the awake conscience of the world is monitoring the crimes of the Zionist regime, a regime which has claims while speaking but in practice pays no respect to the minimum of human rights.”

“(T)he Islamic Republic of Iran expects the international community and especially the United Nations Security Council to be proportionately responsive to” to Israeli high crimes against defenseless Palestinians.

May 15 marks the 70th Nakba Day anniversary, an ongoing catastrophe, gravely harming millions of Palestinians at the hands of a ruthless occupier. 

Israeli violence continued on Tuesday, early in the day scattered in Occupied Palestinian communities, expected to intensify later in the day. 

Bloody Tuesday may follow bloody Monday. One or more follow-up reports will cover developments as they unfold.

VISIT MY NEW WEB SITE: stephenlendman.org (Home - Stephen Lendman). Contact at [email protected].

 

My newest book as editor and contributor is titled "Flashpoint in Ukraine: How the US Drive for Hegemony Risks WW III."

http://www.claritypress.com/LendmanIII.html

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