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Tuesday, March 19, 2019
Israel pounds Gaza after “mistaken” missile launch
A Gaza City site struck by Israel the previous night, 15 March.
APA images15 March 2019
The occupied Gaza Strip was subjected to some 100 Israeli strikes overnight Friday after two rockets were fired from Gaza toward central Israel, sounding off sirens in Tel Aviv.
One of the rockets fired from Gaza landed in the Tel Aviv suburb of Holon. No injuries were reported as a result of the two rockets.
Gaza’s health ministry reported four injuries due to the “Israeli escalation,” after which four rockets were fired from Gaza toward southern Israel, according to Israeli media.
The bombing frequency is much higher than usual. We have had at least five or six blasts just in our area. Huge orange flashes can be seen from the window. #Gaza #Palestine
Both the Hamas and Islamic Jihad factions in Gaza, the organizations
most likely to possess mid-range rockets that could reach Tel Aviv,
quickly denied responsibility, with Hamas saying that it would discipline those responsible for acting outside the national consensus.
Israel: rockets launched by mistake
Hamas officials were meeting with Egyptian mediators at the time the two
rockets were launched. The Egyptian delegation, which has been
conducting indirect negotiations between Hamas and Israel for several
months, was told to leave by Israel later that night before the bombardment of the Strip.
On Friday, the Israeli military told media that the rockets were likely launched by mistake during maintenance work.
Meanwhile the Great March of Return organizing committee announced that
it would postpone demonstrations along Gaza’s eastern boundaries that
day, the first cancelation of the weekly protests since their launch on
30 March last year.
The committee obliquely referenced the overnight escalation and called
on Palestinians to prepare for a massive mobilization on the one-year
anniversary of the protests.
Nearly 200 Palestinians, including 40 children, have been killed during the Great March of Return protestsand more than 7,800 injured by live fire.
A United Nations independent commission of inquiry recently published its
preliminary report stating that it had collected evidence of war crimes
and crimes against humanity by Israel, which has used lethal military
force against unarmed protesters in Gaza.
The commission called on Israel to immediately lift its blockade on Gaza
– one of the key demands of the Great March of Return – and to
investigate “every protest-related killing and injury, promptly,
impartially and independently.”
Israeli media reported this
week that military police have been instructed to investigate eight
additional protest deaths, bringing to 11 the number of fatalities
purportedly under review.
B’Tselem, a leading human rights group in Israel, has previously described the Israeli military’s internal probes as a whitewashing mechanism that “serves as a fig leaf for the occupation.”
Israel keeps up the appearance of a robust internal investigative apparatus to ward off accountability in international courts.
The commission of inquiry’s confidential file containing dossiers of
alleged perpetrators of international crimes related to the Great March
of Return will be handed over to the UN High Commissioner for Human
Rights so that it can be transferred to the International Criminal Court.
The situation in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip has been under
preliminary examination by the International Criminal Court since 2015.
Its chief prosecutor issued an unprecedented warning to Israeli leaders last year that they may face trial for the killings of unarmed protesters in Gaza.
Judges in The Hague have also ordered the International Criminal Court to reach out to victims of war crimes in Palestine.
Israel refused to cooperate with the UN commission of inquiry and denied entry to investigators, as it meanwhile seeks the deportation of the director of Human Rights Watch’s Jerusalem office.
But while publicly attacking the International Criminal Court, Israel is
secretly cooperating with the court’s investigation into its 51-day
military offensive on the Gaza Strip in 2014.
“There is concern in the political and military echelons that the court
will open a criminal investigation into Israel’s actions in the Strip, a
process that could lead to a wave of lawsuits against those involved
and even to their arrest abroad,” the Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported in November.
More than 2,250 Palestinians in Gaza, including 1,462 civilians, among
them at least 551 children, were killed during the summer 2014
onslaught, according to an independent investigation commissioned by the UN Human Rights Council.
Six civilians died in Israel and more than 60 Israeli soldiers died in fighting with the Palestinian resistance.
One of the commanders of that attack,
former Israeli army chief Benny Gantz, seeks to unseat Benjamin
Netanyahu, who was prime minister during the 2014 assault, in Israel’s
general election on 9 April.
Gantz and another top Israeli officer are currently being sued for war crimes in
the Netherlands by Ismail Ziada, a Palestinian-Dutch citizen whose
mother and five other family members were killed in the Israeli bombing
of their home in Gaza during the 2014 assault.
US threatens ICC
On Friday, the US announced that it would revoke or deny visas to “individuals directly responsible for any [International Criminal Court] investigation of US personnel,” in addition to those investigating Israel.
"Pompeo: #US to revoke or deny visas to #ICC staff who attempt to investigate or prosecute alleged abuses by Americans in #Afghanistan, elsewhere; may do same with those who try to take action against #Israel"https://t.co/nfqg0AFuze— Matt Lee (@APDiploWriter) 15 March 2019
In November 2017 the
chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court initiated an
investigation into alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity in
Afghanistan since May 2003.
“If you are responsible for the proposed ICC investigation of US
personnel in connection with the situation in Afghanistan, you should
not assume that you still have or will get a visa or will be permitted
to enter the United States,” US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said on
Friday.
Associated Press reporter Matthew Lee noted that Pompeo’s comment “suggested that action may have already been taken against the ICC prosecutor.”
