Reports of mass arrests for Israeli war criminals

01.25.2009 | khabrein.info

Berlin, Jan 25, IRNA – Dozens of arrests warrants have already been issued for Israeli war criminals, said the head of the Gaza Human Rights Center Raji Sourani in an exclusive interview with IRNA in Berlin on Saturday.

“We have been targeting 87 people in six countries for whom arrest warrants have already been sent out,” the Palestinian lawyer added.

“One of the strategic issues at the Center of Human Rights (in Gaza) is to hold Israeli war criminals and military leaders accountable,” Sourani stressed.

The Palestinian human rights activist said his organization was collecting evidence, documenting Israeli war crimes. “We are now working day and night to document these war crimes and hopefully we will hold them accountable. We hope they (Israelis) cannot get away with crimes like these,” Sourani said.

“We will use universal jurisdiction to deal with these war criminals,” the attorney added.

He urged more international attention to the issue of Israeli atrocities in the Palestinian territories.

Sourani hailed the recent worldwide mass demonstrations against the Jewish state as an effective way to address Israeli war crimes.

There have been growing international calls for an investigation of Israeli war crimes in Gaza.

Sourani accused the Israeli military of deliberately targeting the civilian Palestinian population during its 22-day military offense in the Gaza strip.

He called the level of destruction in Gaza ‘appalling’, saying the initial estimates for rebuilding the war-ravaged area was around three billion US dollars.

Sourani said the overall Palestinian death toll exceeded 1,400 since the December 27 military campaign.

Around six thousand people have been injured of which hundreds are in a critical situation, he added.