Opinion | Editorials
Hold Israel accountable for war crimes
The UN and ICRC have a moral responsibility to bring the Israeli war criminals to justice.
- Gulf News
- Published: 23:47 January 9, 2009
Shortly after the United Nations Security Council passed its resolution to end the war on Gaza, Israel attacked a house in the ravaged city, killing a family of six. And despite the resolution's call to resume aid to the Strip, relief agencies are yet to be allowed to do their job by the Israeli army.
The UN resolution might have been agreed upon by the majority of the Security Council's members. The fact that the United States abstained from endorsing it makes it ineffective. Israel therefore believes it would be obliged to implement it. Its 'third stage' of operations has just begun anyway.
So who would hold Israel accountable? Who could force the Olmert government to stop the massacres? Obviously nobody. Finally, the UN agencies working in Gaza and the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) told us what we knew all along. Israel is violating international law and "deliberately" obstructing relief efforts.
It is a good step to start to tell the truth, even after more than 770 people were killed - half of them women and children massacred in their homes or in UN shelters. But again, are the UN and the ICRC willing to hold Israel accountable for such war crimes? Will Israel ever pay the price? Will Olmert and Ehud Barak ever be questioned by international courts?
For two weeks, international politics have failed the innocents in Gaza and inter-Arab disputes left Gazans alone in the face of the state-of-the-art US-made Israeli mass killing machine.
But we should not fail justice. The children of Gaza don't expect justice for the US and its allies. The UN, whose schools and aid convoys have been attacked, and the ICRC have a moral responsibility to at least try to bring the Israeli war criminals to justice.
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