Ali Abunimah
The Electronic Intifada / April 24, 2020
Benny Gantz will soon be sworn in as Israel’s deputy prime minister in a coalition deal with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
If the deal proceeds as planned, Gantz will take over as prime minister in 18 months.
In the meantime, Gantz will continue to face efforts to hold him accountable for crimes committed during Israel’s summer 2014 assault on Gaza, when he was the Israeli army chief of staff.
On Wednesday, Ismail Ziada filed an appeal against a ruling by a Dutch court granting Gantz and Israel’s former air force chief Amir Eshel immunity against a war crimes lawsuit.
Ziada, a Palestinian-Dutch citizen, has been suing Gantz and Eshel for a lethal bombing attack on his family’s home in Gaza.
The 20 July 2014 attack reduced the three-floor building in al-Bureij refugee camp to rubble.
It killed Ziada’s 70-year-old mother Muftia, his brothers Jamil, Yousif and Omar, sister-in-law Bayan, and 12-year-old nephew Shaban, as well as a seventh person visiting the family.
Ziada sued the Israeli generals for more than $600,000 in damages plus costs.
Israel’s assault on Gaza that summer killed more than 2,200 Palestinians, including 550 children. An independent inquiry commissioned by the UN Human Rights Council found extensive evidence of Israeli war crimes.
But in January, the district court in The Hague threw out Ziada’s case, granting Gantz and Eshel immunity on the grounds that they committed their alleged crimes while acting in an official capacity.
This ruling flew in the face of even the Dutch government’s position that immunity does not extend to international crimes such as war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide.
More significantly, the Dutch court repudiated the Nuremberg Principles, established with the trials of Nazi leaders after World War II. Those principles state that individuals cannot evade responsibility because they were acting as a head of state or government official, or because they were following orders from a superior.
The appeal will contend that “the court erred in its decision to offer functional immunity to the defendants, as such immunity is not enjoyed for war crimes,” a press release from the Palestine Justice Campaign, which supports Ziada’s legal effort, states.
Ziada is represented by prominent human rights lawyer Liesbeth Zegveld, who recently won a case forcing the Dutch government to pay compensation to victims and survivors of its colonial crimes in Indonesia in the 1940s.
Israel’s government has mounted an all-out legal effort, sparing no expense to protect its former generals from accountability before a Dutch court.
Ziada’s campaign for justice, by contrast, is a grassroots effort supported by hundreds of individuals donating money to assist with legal expenses by crowdfunding.
Roger Waters has also previously backed the lawsuit. The rock legend tweeted out news of Ziada’s appeal:
BENNY GANTZ PROSECUTED FOR WAR CRIMES IN HOLLAND
Full video here: Ali Abunimah https://bit.ly/rwziada #PalestineJusticeCampaign https://twitter.com/JusticeZiada/status/1253349221694046209 …
Today, Ismail Ziada, represented by Dutch lawyer Liesbeth Zegveld, has filed a notice of appeal against the decision of the District Court of The Hague on the case brought against Benny Gantz, former Chief of General Staff of the Israeli armed forces and Amir Eshel, former Commander of the Israeli air force for war crimes committed in Gaza. Mr Ziada contends that the court erred in its decision to offer functional immunity to the defendants, as such immunity is not enjoyed for war crimes.
Mr Ziada, who is of Palestinian origin, is seeking to hold the defendants accountable for the targeted attack on the Ziada family home on 20 July 2014 which resulted in the death of Mr Ziada’s 70-year-old mother, three brothers, his sister-in-law, a 12-year-old nephew and a visiting friend. Mr Ziada contends that the attack was a violation of international humanitarian law and constituted a gross violation of internationally recognised human rights principles.
Read more here: https://palestinejusticecampaign.wordpress.com/…/ziada-fil…/
Roger Waters
Ali Abunimah is co-founder of The Electronic Intifada and author of The Battle for Justice in Palestine, now out from Haymarket Books
