Shurat Hadin files war crime complaint against Hamas with ICC
The law center demanded that the court issue preemptive arrest warrants against a number of Hamas leaders who they say are directing rocket attacks from Gaza.
By JERUSALEM POST STAFFThe entrance of the International Criminal Court (ICC) is seen in The Hague March 3, 2011.(photo credit: REUTERS/JERRY LAMPEN/FILE PHOTO)
The civil rights organization Shurat Hadin Law Center filed a war crimes complaint last week against Hamas to the International Criminal Court (ICC). The complaint, filed on behalf of residents of southern Israel, charges the terrorist group with intentionally targeting Israeli civilians with the intent to kill and maim them.The law center demanded that the ICC issue preemptive arrest warrants against a number of Hamas leaders who they say are directing rocket attacks from Gaza, including its head Ismail Haniyeh and Mohammed Deif, chief of its military wing the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades.Shurat Hadin noted what they called the "bitter irony" of Hamas expressing support of ICC war crime investigation of Israel while the group takes responsibility for rocket barrages on Israeli towns and civilian centers."The law of armed conflict exists, above all, to protect civilians from the horrors of war," reads the complaint. "The deliberate targeting of innocent civilians is among the most severe form of war crime, the punishment of which is the reason for the existence of the Rome Statute and of this court."Moreover, they deliberately select the target of their terrorist rocket fire from Gaza based solely upon the potential and likelihood of murdering, injuring and maiming Jewish civilians," it said."The terrorist rocket fire on Israeli civilian population centerד advances no actual military objective other than the spreading םכ fear and the deaths and injury of civilians.”Shurat Hadin president attorney Nitsana Darshan-Leitner said that "Hamas leaders are committing war crimes against Israeli civilians in full view of the ICC and the world community."The entire purpose of the existence of the Court in The Hague is to deter and prosecute violent crimes like these being perpetrated by Hamas against Israelis. It is a bitter irony that at the same time that the Palestinians, including Hamas, are insisting upon a criminal investigation of Israel in the ICC, they are intentionally carrying out violent war crimes against the Jewish state with no effort to hide their actions."Shurat Hadin Law Center legally represents victims of terror attacks in Israeli and at international legal proceedings.
