Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara decided not to open a criminal investigation to determine whether the comments made by certain senior Israeli officials following the pogrom which was committed by Hamas on October 7, 2023, could be considered as incitement to genocide or even just violence against Palestinian civilians in Gaza, according to a document that was filed in court on Monday.
This decision by the Attorney General is announced in the written response by her office to a petition that was filed before the High Court of Justice by the organization Israel Democracy Guard. She had asked Baharav-Miara’s office to launch investigations into certain comments made by ministers and deputies, comments which ostensibly approved of indiscriminate strikes in the Gaza Strip.
The response did not specify the reasons behind the decision and the prosecutor’s office declined to comment.
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Among the remarks cited in the request, the words that were spoken by the Minister of Heritage, Amichay Eliyahu, in November 2023, when he said that the war in Gaza could end quickly by dropping an atomic bomb on the territory , and the call “to erase Gaza from the face of the earth” which was launched by Galit Distel-Atbaryan, an MP elected under the Likud label.
Various remarks which were put forward before the International Court of Justice in The Hague. They were presented there, as part of the request filed by South Africa in January, as decisive evidence of Israel’s alleged intention to commit genocide in Gaza while these two elected officials assume no responsibility. role in war management.
Israel launched its offensive in Gaza following the massacre perpetrated by Hamas in southern Israel on October 7, 2023. The gunmen killed more than 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and kidnapped 251 people who had taken hostage in the Gaza Strip.
Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry said Sunday that more than 44,000 people had been killed in more than 13 months of war – a toll that is unverifiable and makes no distinction between civilians and terrorists. For its part, Israel claimed that as of November, 18,000 terrorists had lost their lives since the start of the war in the military campaign – in addition to a thousand others who had been killed on Israeli territory. , on October 7 and in the days that followed.
Palestinians walk next to the debris of a building in Beit Lahia, in the northern Gaza Strip, on November 21, 2024. (AFP)
Israel vehemently denies accusations of “genocide”, saying the Jewish state seeks to minimize civilian casualties and pointing out that Hamas uses Gaza civilians as human shields, carrying out its operations from civilian areas – homes. , hospitals, schools, mosques…
Israel has announced that its war in the Strip aims to destroy the military and governance capabilities of Hamas, the ruling terrorist group, secure the release of hostages and return dozens of them safely home. of thousands of Israelis who lived in the north of the country and the border communities of the coastal enclave and who were displaced.
If the International Court of Justice had not ordered Israel to end its campaign in Gaza in its initial decision, it had demanded the implementation of a series of measures, in particular requiring Israel to “prevent and sanction” alleged incitements to genocide.
The International Court of Justice (ICJ), the main judicial body of the United Nations, during the public hearing on the request for an order of provisional measures submitted by South Africa, which accuses Israel of “genocide”, at the Palace of peace in The Hague, the seat of the tribunal, on January 11 and 12, 2024. (Credit: International Court of Justice)
On January 9, three days before the first hearing in South Africa’s petition, the attorney general’s office said law enforcement agencies were “looking into” problematic words that had been uttered by Israeli officials.
According to Baharav-Miara’s office, the decision not to launch a criminal investigation was made on November 18.
The office has not made public the contents of the report it will present to the ICJ, which goes into detail on Israel’s compliance with the interim measures that were imposed on the Jewish state in January.
As a signatory country to the 1948 Genocide Convention, which prohibits incitement to genocide, Israel is legally required to continue this type of speech, in accordance with laws that were adopted by the country after ratification of the convention.
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