New Delhi: Nine countries have announced their intention to take measures against Israel as part of an effort to end its “occupation of the State of Palestine” and in light of its operations in Gaza, including by upholding The Hague’s arrest warrants against Israel’s prime minister and former defence minister.
Organised under the banner of the ‘Hague Group’, Belize, Bolivia, Colombia, Cuba, Honduras, Malaysia, Namibia, Senegal and South Africa said they would also prevent the supply of arms and munitions to Israel where there is a “clear risk” they would be used to violate international law, as well as the docking in their ports of vessels that carried military fuel or weapons to Israel in cases where such a risk was identified.
The violations of international law concerned involve humanitarian law, international human rights law as well as the prohibition of genocide in Palestine, the Hague Group said in a statement on Friday (January 31), the day of its inauguration.
Its decision was motivated by Israel’s approach to rulings by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) and the International Criminal Court (ICC), The Guardian cited the group as saying.
Israel has generally viewed the UN and its international courts as prejudiced and partial. Upon the ICJ’s July ruling that the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories is illegal, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that the “Jewish people are not occupiers in their own land, including in our eternal capital Jerusalem nor in Judea and Samaria, our historical homeland”.
The Hague Group’s formation also comes as Republicans in the US federal legislature have tried to pass a Bill to sanction the ICC for its warrants against Netanyahu and his former defence minister Yoav Gallant on the grounds that the two allegedly oversaw attacks on Gazan civilians and used starvation as a weapon in the Israel-Hamas war.
South Africa, one of the nine Hague Group nations, is known for having brought a case to the ICJ alleging that Israel committed genocide in Gaza. The case is expected to take years to conclude.
“The Hague Group’s formation sends a clear message: no nation is above the law, and no crime will go unanswered,” The Guardian quoted South African foreign minister Ronald Lamola as saying.
The ICJ on Thursday said Belize had applied to join South Africa’s case. Bolivia, Colombia and Cuba are among the other Hague Group countries that have also asked to join the case.
Progressive International (PI), the organisation that convened the meeting among the Hague Group’s representatives, said in its own statement on Friday that the return of Gazans to the north of the coastal strip after the Israel-Hamas ceasefire “demands a renewed international effort to hold their oppressors accountable”.
“Israel’s violations go beyond the mass murder and persecution of Palestinians … They strike at the very foundations of international law, which the global community has a duty to defend,” PI quoted Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim as saying.
