Complaint Filed at ICC by Hamas over Israeli Regime’s Gaza Blockade
TEHRAN (Tasnim) – A complaint was filed to the International Criminal Court (ICC) by the Palestinian resistance movement Hamas over the Israeli regime’s brutal siege of the Gaza Strip that has lasted for 16 years.
The complaint has been filed by Hamas' lawmakers about the war crime and the crime against humanity that have been committed by Tel Aviv against Gazans in the form of the ongoing blockade, Lebanon's al-Mayadeen satellite news channel reported on its website on Tuesday, citing various news outlets.
It is set to be submitted to the tribunal by French lawyer Gilles Duvier, the channel said, citing Huda Naim, head of the Human Rights Committee in the Palestinian Legislative Council in the Gaza Strip.
"We are in a comprehensive battle with a criminal, colonial, settler occupation, which includes all arenas and fields, and the legal battle is one of the most important tools, because the occupation depends for its survival on military force and international support and cover," Naim said.
The complaint serves "to criminalize the Israeli occupation for its grave violations against the Palestinian people, especially the crime of blockade, and its flagrant violations of laws and charters," she noted.
"There is a great need to exert every effort to strengthen the Palestinian narrative, reveal the fascist truth of the occupation, and expose its crimes to international public opinion," the Palestinian official stated.
Israel occupied Gaza and the nearby Palestinian territory of the West Bank during a heavily-Western-backed war in 1967.
The regime withdrew its forces from Gaza in 2005, but has been keeping the territory under an all-out land, aerial, and naval siege that has turned it into the world's largest open-air prison.
According to the United Nations, as a result of the siege, about 2.1 million Palestinians in the besieged sliver are locked in, with the vast majority of them unable to access the remainder of the occupied Palestinian territories and the outside world.