The International Legal Forum (ILF), an Israeli-based NGO, along with a global coalition of lawyers, wrote to the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague on Wednesday asking the chief prosecutor to open an urgent investigation against Hamas on charges of war crimes, genocide and crimes against humanity.
ZAKA volunteer describes the horrors at Kibbutz Be'eri // Hanan Greenwood
The appeal details the specific acts committed by the organization's terrorists and leaders, including deliberately directing attacks against the civilian population, mass murder, orderly executions, hostage-taking, torture, rape, use of human shields, looting, and vandalism.
The petitioners ask the court to issue arrest warrants for the Hamas leadership, as well as for other parties involved in financing terrorism, including Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas, Ayatollah Khamenei of Iran, and General Hossein Salami, commander of Iran's Revolutionary Guards. They also claim that these individuals are legally guilty and directly involved in the atrocities.
Attorney Arsen Ostrovsky, Director General of the International Legal Forum, said: "The atrocities committed by members of the Hamas terrorist organization on October 7 are unprecedented in their savagery and barbarism, carnage and massacre against the Jewish people, the likes of which we have not seen since the Holocaust. Every conceivable international law has been completely violated. This court was established precisely to ensure that there is no impunity against the perpetrators of the most heinous crimes, such as those committed by Hamas and ISIS-like terrorists."
They are also demanding an arrest warrant for Mahmoud Abbas, Photo: AP
Ostrovsky adds that the complaint includes the PA chairman "by virtue of their being signatories to the Rome Statute (meaning membership in the International Court of Justice). The PA claims territorial jurisdiction over the Gaza Strip and therefore bears ultimate legal responsibility for all crimes arising out of and committed in Gaza, including by members of the Hamas terrorist organization. At the same time, there is irrefutable evidence that Hamas is armed and financed by the Islamic Republic of Iran, which operates according to the instructions and order of the Iranian regime."
Ostrovsky told Israel Hayom, "We will make sure that no stone remains unturned in the pursuit of justice for the perpetrators who committed one of the most heinous crimes against the Jewish people since the Holocaust."
Hamas terrorists on their way to Israel, photo: AFP
Termination of EU funding
Meanwhile, a coalition of more than 40 organizations, led by the Jerusalem Institute of Justice, a human rights organization, launched a campaign yesterday to end all EU funding to Hamas. This effort follows a week of internal struggles in the EU over funding for Palestinian NGOs.
Director of the International Law and Public Diplomacy Department at the Jerusalem Institute of Justice, Uri Morad, clarifies: "Hamas controls the funds transferred to the Palestinians for humanitarian aid and uses them for terrorist purposes. It collects taxes when shipments cross the border, seizes a percentage of the equipment transported to sell them at a profit on the black market, steals resources intended for Gaza's civilian population such as fuel and food, and even uses materials intended for humanitarian projects such as water and sewage pipelines to manufacture rockets."
Documentation: Rafah crossing opens for first time since the beginning of the war // Arab networks
"The European Union is the largest Western funder of Palestinian NGOs and is already aware that a significant percentage of its donations go to terrorist elements," says Jerusalem Justice Executive Director Flavia Swolde, "tripling the funds owed to Hamas without any supervision, after Hamas broadcast live testimonies to the whole world about a cruel and sadistic massacre perpetrated by its members, defying all logic."
On October 9, EU Commission official Oliver Verhely announced that the EU would review the €691 million budget it had earmarked for Palestinian NGOs. This declaration was abruptly revoked after only 5 hours, while Hamas terrorists continued to massacre civilians in the village of Gaza and Kibbutz Be'eri.
Moreover, two days later, the European Commission announced that it would actually triple its funding to Gaza, without taking any control measures to ensure that the funds do not reach Hamas. Subsequently, on October 19, the European Parliament saw fit to intervene and demanded an EU review of the way the Palestinians were funded.
All around is burnt, dusty and broken. The destruction at Kibbutz Be'eri, photo: Ariel Kahane
According to the research department of the Jerusalem Institute of Justice, Hamas is not the only organization that cynically uses funding for humanitarian purposes for terrorist purposes. In December 2019, Israel arrested a terrorist network of 50 people in the West Bank believed to be responsible for launching a bomb that killed an Israeli teenager. The arrests included 3 senior employees of organizations that received generous grants from the European Union – Walid Hantasha, Uday Abudi and Irtaf Hajaj. Their organization received a grant from the European Union of £699,236 despite their ties to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.
The advocacy efforts of the Jerusalem Institute of Justice (JIJ) and a joint letter to European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen were joined by prominent Israeli, European and North American organizations committed to fighting the war on terror, including: NGO Monitor, the International Legal Forum, Shurat HaDin, the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, Maccabi Europe and the National Jewish Assembly.
*The Jerusalem Institute of Justice (JIJ) is an Israeli human rights NGO with advisory status to the United Nations.
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