The Middle East Dilema

On July 25th top Palestinian officials filed a complaint before the International Criminal Court, the complaint accused Israel of war crimes committed against Gaza. There have been several legal proceedings over the 18 days of fighting between Hamas and Israel, a regional war that has killed over 800 people.

Said complaint accuses Israel of severe crimes such as: attacks against civilians, excessive loss of human life, and apartheid amongst many others.

The next step this complaint will follow is to see whether the International Criminal Court has jurisdiction in the Palestinian Authority. The main concern for this is that this territory is not a member of the United Nations, although the territory became an observer a couple of years ago.

Earlier in the week, the United Nations Human Rights Council announced its intention to create an international commission of inquiry whose main focus would be to investigate all alleged violations of international humanitarian law as well as international human rights law in the aforementioned territory, specifically during Israel’s latest offensive military strike in Gaza.

It should be noted that last month, United Nations Secretary-General, Ban Ki Moon, urged Israel to release any and all Palestinian administrative detainees over fears of failing health in a hunger strike. Also since April another undisclosed United Nations human rights expert asked Israel to prevent settlers from taking over a building in the West Bank city of Hebron. This building was strategically located between the Israeli Settlement of Kiryat Arba and the Ibrahami Mosque, any settlement of such kind has the potential to increase violence and harassment against not only Palestinians but agains a whole religion as well.

Let us hope that the situation happening in this conflict region comes to swift, decisive and lasting peace. For the best of everyone.