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British Human Rights Lawyer Amal Clooney Advised ICC Prosecutor on Arrest Warrants for Netanyahu, Hamas Leaders
Amal Clooney, special adviser to ICC prosecutor of the situation in Sudan, speaks at event during 78th United Nations General Assembly in New York City, US, Sept. 21, 2023. Photo: REUTERS/Shannon Stapleton
British human rights attorney Amal Clooney, who is also the wife of actor George Clooney, said on Monday that she was among a group of legal experts that advised the International Criminal Court (ICC) prosecutor to seek arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, his defense chief, and three Hamas terrorist leaders for alleged war crimes.
Amal said in a statement published on the website for the Clooney Foundation for Justice that she supports the ICC in the “historic step” it has taken “to bring justice to victims of atrocities in Israel and Palestine.” If the arrest warrants are issued by the court’s judges, Netanyahu would be the first senior leader of a close US ally to be charged by the ICC.
“I served on this panel because I believe in the rule of law and the need to protect civilian lives,” Amal added. “The law that protects civilians in war was developed more than 100 years ago and it applies in every country in the world regardless of the reasons for a conflict. As a human rights lawyer, I will never accept that one child’s life has less value than another’s. I do not accept that any conflict should be beyond the reach of the law, nor that any perpetrator should be above the law.”
ICC prosecutor Karim Khan asked Amal more than four months ago to join a panel of international legal experts given the task of reviewing evidence and legal analysis of suspected war crimes and crimes against humanity related to the Oct. 7 attacks on Israel and the ensuing war in Gaza.
Amal is an adjunct professor at Columbia Law School and co-founded the Clooney Foundation for Justice, which gives free legal support to victims of human rights abuses. As a lawyer, she specializes in international law and human rights. She previously represented Yazidi victims of genocide “in the only three genocide cases against ISIS members in the world” and also represented victims of the genocide in Darfur, Sudan.
The eight-person legal panel organized by the ICC published a detailed legal report of its findings on Monday. They said they found “reasonable grounds to believe” that all five men named in the arrest warrants — Netanyahu, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, and Hamas leaders Yahya Sinwar, Mohammed Al-Masri, and Ismail Haniyeh — have committed war crimes or crimes against humanity in Israel or the Gaza Strip.
Two panel members who advised the ICC were appointed as expert “special advisers” by Khan, and two other panel members were former judges at criminal tribunals in The Hague, Amal explained. The panel unanimously concluded that there are “reasonable grounds to believe” that Netanyahu and Gallant “have committed war crimes and crimes against humanity including starvation as a method of warfare, murder, persecution and extermination,” and that Sinwar, Deif, and Haniyeh have “committed war crimes and crimes against humanity, including hostage-taking, murder, and crimes of sexual violence.” A panel of ICC judges will now consider Khan’s application for the arrest warrants.
The legal experts who advised the ICC prosecutor also published an op-ed on Monday further supporting their findings. Amal said she hopes witnesses will cooperate with the ICC amid its investigation and “that justice will prevail in a region that has already suffered too much.”
Netanyahu and US President Joe Biden both condemned the arrest warrants. The Israeli prime minster called them a “travesty of justice” and an “outrageous decision” that “creates a twisted and false moral equivalence between the leaders of Israel and the henchmen of Hamas.”
Biden addressed the call for arrest warrants during his speech on Monday at the White House in celebration of Jewish American Heritage Month.
“Let me be clear: We reject the ICC’s application for arrest warrants against Israeli leaders,” Biden said. “There is no equivalence between Israel and Hamas, and it’s clear that Israel wants to do all it can to ensure civilian protection.”
He added, “Contrary to allegations against Israel made by the International Court, what’s happening is not genocide. We reject that. We will always stand with Israel and threats against its security.”
While Israel and the US are not members of the ICC, the court claims it has jurisdiction over Gaza, East Jerusalem, and the West Bank since Palestinian leaders agreed in 2015 to be bound by the court’s founding principles, according to CNN.
The post British Human Rights Lawyer Amal Clooney Advised ICC Prosecutor on Arrest Warrants for Netanyahu, Hamas Leaders first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Germany: 5 Killed, Scores Wounded after Saudi Man Plows Car Into Christmas crowd
Magdeburg Christmas market, December 21, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Christian Mang
i24 News – A suspected terrorist plowed a vehicle into a crowd at a Christmas market in the German city of Magdeburg, west of the capital Berlin, killing at least five and injuring dozens more.
Local police confirmed that the suspect was a Saudi national born in 1974 and acting alone.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz expressed his concern about the incident, saying that “reports from Magdeburg suggest something bad. My thoughts are with the victims and their families.”
Police declined to give casualty numbers, confirming only a large-scale operation at the market, where people had gathered to celebrate in the days leading up to the Christmas holidays.
The post Germany: 5 Killed, Scores Wounded after Saudi Man Plows Car Into Christmas crowd first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Syria’s New Rulers Name HTS Commander as Defense Minister
A person waves a flag adopted by the new Syrian rulers, as people gather during a celebration called by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) near the Umayyad Mosque, after the ousting of Syria’s Bashar al-Assad, in Damascus, Syria, Photo: December 20, 2024. REUTERS/Ammar Awad/File Photo
Syria’s new rulers have appointed Murhaf Abu Qasra, a leading figure in the insurgency which toppled Bashar al-Assad, as defense minister in the interim government, an official source said on Saturday.
Abu Qasra, who is also known by the nom de guerre Abu Hassan 600, is a senior figure in the Islamist Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) group which led the campaign that ousted Assad this month. He led numerous military operations during Syria’s revolution, the source said.
Syria’s de facto leader Ahmed al-Sharaa discussed “the form of the military institution in the new Syria” during a meeting with armed factions on Saturday, state news agency SANA reported.
Abu Qasra during the meeting sat next to Sharaa, also known by the nom de guerre Abu Mohammed al-Golani, photos published by SANA showed.
Prime Minister Mohammed al-Bashir said this week that the defense ministry would be restructured using former rebel factions and officers who defected from Assad’s army.
Bashir, who formerly led an HTS-affiliated administration in the northwestern province of Idlib, has said he will lead a three-month transitional government. The new administration has not declared plans for what will happen after that.
Earlier on Saturday, the ruling General Command named Asaad Hassan al-Shibani as foreign minister, SANA said. A source in the new administration told Reuters that this step “comes in response to the aspirations of the Syrian people to establish international relations that bring peace and stability.”
Shibani, a 37-year-old graduate of Damascus University, previously led the political department of the rebels’ Idlib government, the General Command said.
Sharaa’s group was part of al Qaeda until he broke ties in 2016. It had been confined to Idlib for years until going on the offensive in late November, sweeping through the cities of western Syria and into Damascus as the army melted away.
Sharaa has met with a number of international envoys this week. He has said his primary focus is on reconstruction and achieving economic development and that he is not interested in engaging in any new conflicts.
Syrian rebels seized control of Damascus on Dec. 8, forcing Assad to flee after more than 13 years of civil war and ending his family’s decades-long rule.
Washington designated Sharaa a terrorist in 2013, saying al Qaeda in Iraq had tasked him with overthrowing Assad’s rule and establishing Islamic sharia law in Syria. US officials said on Friday that Washington would remove a $10 million bounty on his head.
The war has killed hundreds of thousands of people, caused one of the biggest refugee crises of modern times and left cities bombed to rubble and the economy hollowed out by global sanctions.
The post Syria’s New Rulers Name HTS Commander as Defense Minister first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Sweden Ends Funding for UNRWA, Pledges to Seek Other Aid Channels
View of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) building in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip. Photo: Abed Rahim Khatib / Flash90.
i24 News – Sweden will no longer fund the U.N. refugee agency for Palestinians (UNRWA) and will instead provide humanitarian assistance to Gaza via other channels, the Scandinavian country said on Friday.
The decision comes on the heels of multiple revelations regarding the agency’s employees’ involvement in the October 7, 2023, Hamas-led massacre in southern Israel that triggered the war in Gaza.
Sweden’s decision was in response to the Israeli ban, as it will make channeling aid via the agency more difficult, the country’s aid minister, Benjamin Dousa, said.
“Large parts of UNRWA’s operations in Gaza are either going to be severely weakened or completely impossible,” Dousa said. “For the government, the most important thing is that support gets through.”
The Palestinian embassy in Stockholm said in a statement: “We reject the idea of finding alternatives to UNRWA, which has a special mandate to provide services to Palestinian refugees.”
Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister Sharren Haskel thanked Dousa for a meeting they had this week and for Sweden’s decision to drop its support for UNRWA.
“There are worthy and viable alternatives for humanitarian aid, and I appreciate the willingness to listen and adopt a different approach,” she said.
The post Sweden Ends Funding for UNRWA, Pledges to Seek Other Aid Channels first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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