A US-based rights group has officially called on the International Criminal Court (ICC) to prosecute a list of 40 senior Israeli commanders for war crimes over their involvement in the occupying regime’s genocide of Palestinians in the besieged Gaza Strip.
The plea was made by Democracy for the Arab World Now (DAWN), a human rights organization founded by prominent Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, the Washington Post columnist who was brutally murdered in the kingdom’s Istanbul consulate in 2018.
DAWN filed the submission on Wednesday, with Sarah Leah Whitson, the rights group’s executive director, urging the ICC to investigate the case of Israel’s 40 military top brass as the “prime suspects” in the regime’s genocidal war on Gaza.
“These 40 commanders who have been responsible for planning, ordering, and executing Israel’s indiscriminate bombardment, wanton destruction, and mass killing of civilians in Gaza should be prime suspects in any ICC investigation,” Whitson said in a statement.
“While Israel has done its best to conceal the identities of many of its officers, they should be put on notice that they face individual criminal liability for the crimes under way in Gaza.”
The rights group stressed that it would publicly release in the coming month the names of all 40 commanders on its list, among them was Israel’s minister of military affairs Yoav Gallant.
Pointing to the mounting death toll of Gaza residents due to Israel’s incessant bombardment of the besieged territory since early October, DAWN also censured as “war crimes” the regime’s brutal campaign that has displaced 1.9 million Palestinians and targeted civilian infrastructure, including mosques and hospitals.
“Intentionally depriving civilians of basic necessities, including by blocking or even impeding the provision of humanitarian relief supplies, is a war crime under the Rome Statute of the ICC,” DAWN said.
“Intentionally targeting medical facilities, ambulances, places of worship, places of culture, and most seriously the indiscriminate bombardment of civilian areas, are crimes in the Rome Statute.”
DAWN’s submission to the ICC is one of several the court has received from both international non-governmental groups as well as the world countries who are calling on the court to investigate Israel’s war crimes in Gaza.
Israel waged the devastating war on Gaza on October 7 after Hamas-led Palestinian resistance groups carried out a surprise operation against the occupying entity in response to its decades-long violence against Palestinians.
The bloodiest-ever war on Gaza has so far killed more than 20,000 people, mostly women and children, and injured over 53,000 others, with thousands more believed lost and buried under rubble.
The regime has also cut off most water, food and power supplies into Gaza.
