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Tunisian president calls for bringing Israeli leaders to justice over their crimes against Palestinians

October 1, 2014 at 2:03 pm

Tunisia’s interim president Moncef Marzouki has called for international legal action against Israeli leaders over the “massacres” that Israel recently committed against the Palestinians in the latest war against the Gaza Strip.

In a speech at an international conference, held on Tuesday in the Tunisian capital Tunis, Al-Amat Online news website quoted Marzouki as saying that he believed Israeli leaders should no longer get away with their crimes and evade punishment.

“Those who committed crimes against the Palestinians must be brought to justice in accordance with international law. This is not a political stance, but a humanitarian one,” he reportedly told those attending the conference, which was titled, “The legal and political paths of the Palestine issue”.

On 7 July, Israel launched a massive war on the Gaza Strip that lasted for 51 days, killing more than 2,100 Palestinians and injuring thousands of others, mostly civilians.

Marzouki also called for the implementation of international laws and treaties to “guarantee the Palestinian people’s right to try those criminals in front of international courts”.

“Zionism must stop its crimes against the Palestinian people,” he added.

Marzouki pointed to three dimensions of his country’s support for the Palestine cause: “Tunisia accepts what the Palestinians decide, supports Palestinian unity by seeking to unify [our Palestinian] brothers, and stands by the side of the Palestinian people.”

He continued: “I met Abu Mazen [Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas] three days ago in New York [on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly meetings] and he told me that Palestine will continue its efforts to ratify the Rome Statute,” which established the International Criminal Court, so as to file for legal action against Israel’s war criminals.

According to the Rome Statute, the International Criminal Court’s jurisdiction includes war crimes, crimes against humanity, genocide crimes—crimes committed on the territory of countries that are a signatory to the Rome Statute or by citizens of such countries.

After the war, Palestinian factions asked President Abbas to join the Rome Statute to enable Palestine to finally try Israeli leaders for their crimes against the Palestinian people.