In response to these acts, the world must impose a comprehensive arms embargo on Israel, Amnesty International demanded.“The time has come to stop symbolic condemnation. The international community must act decisively and stop the delivery of arms and military equipment to Israel,” Mugrabi stated. “The failure to do so will add fuel the most serious human rights violations against thousands of men, women and children living under the cruel siege imposed by Israel on the Gaza Strip.” In addition, Mugrabi called on the International Criminal Court to investigate the situation in Gaza. “Unless Israel ensures an effective and independent investigation leading to criminal charges against those responsible, the ICC must open an official investigation into these killings and ensure that those responsible are brought to justice.”Amnesty International is known for speaking out against Israel and frequently and extensively critiques the country for alleged violations of human rights.This February, the organization published its annual report, which stated that Israel was killing and torturing Palestinian children, committing unlawful killings, subjecting the approximately two million inhabitants of the Gaza strip to collective punishment and using excessive force. In July 2017, Finance Minister Moshe Kahlon called to remove tax breaks for Amnesty International’s Israeli donors in light of the organization’s campaigning against Israeli policies.Likud MK Miki Zohar then said that “unfortunately, Amnesty defines itself as a human rights organization but behaves in the opposite way. The organization constantly persecutes IDF soldiers and defames them. The organization supports draft dodgers and infiltrators and acts with all its might against Israel. And despite this, its tax benefit as a non-profit organization is renewed, because of the argument that these are legal actions.”After a heated debate between the coalition and the opposition, Amnesty’s tax break was only renewed for a year, as opposed to the usual three years.Lahav Harkov contributed to this report.Malicious tactics are being employed by the Israeli military who are deliberately using weapons of war to cause life-changing injuries to Palestinian protesters. Why are weapons still being sold to #Israel? pic.twitter.com/kvfvCCKSfo
— AmnestyInternational (@amnesty) April 27, 2018