The Arab League and Egypt's Ministry of Foreign Affairs are now reportedly bent on documenting Israeli human rights violations in Gaza as a prelude to lodging a complaint with international courts. The move is part of earlier Arab recommendations made by Arab permanent representatives last Monday As a first step, Arab League Secretary-General Amr Moussa has called the International Criminal Court's chief prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo to inform him about the impending action at The Hague, Arab League spokesman Abdul Alim Al-Abiyet told Saudi Gazette by phone from Cairo, Friday. Working in tandem, the Palestinian Authority held a consultative meeting Thursday night in Ramallah before submitting to the Arab League its acceptance of the ICC's authority as part of the Arab endeavor for legal action against Israel, PA Minister of Justice Dr. Ali Khashan told Saudi Gazette. “I'm going to meet Ocampo as per the directives of President (Mahmoud) Abbas, to expedite the process,” Dr. Khashan said. Sabri Saydam, a member of the Crisis Cell for Gaza at Abbas's office had said earlier this week at a Gaza reconstruction conference in Dubai that 300 legal suits against Israel have been made and that the number could go up to 500 claims. “This is the biggest holocaust after Rwanda and World War II,” he said. Saydam added that Israel has to be pressed into paying compensation for crimes going back to 1948. Around 700 photographs have also been gathered and another 300 are to be added to a collection created as evidence to sue Israel, he said. Israel's recent air and ground bombardment of Gaza killed 1,300 Palestinians, wounded thousands more and devastated Gaza's infrastructure, causing a huge humanitarian crisis. Once the Israeli war crimes are compiled, a memo will be presented to a probe committee composed of Arab and international personalities, the Kuwaiti news agency KUNA said Friday The committee will document Israeli violations and crimes in collaboration with the people of Gaza, civil society organizations, and UN agencies, mainly the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), the unnamed source cited by KUNA said in news remarks. Egypt will send its memo to UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) investigators, who have asked Cairo for information on Israeli violations in the Palestinian territory, the source said. ‘Not easy' “It's a long procedure and not an easy task, but we are not going to give up,” Al-Abiyet of the Arab league told Saudi Gazette. “We have a very strong case and international sympathy.” The ICC is the world's first permanent war-crimes tribunal. Its first case opened in The Hague in mid January with Congolese rebel leader Thomas Lubanga in the dock on charges of recruiting children as young as 10 years old to become soldiers in his country's bloody internal conflicts. The UNHRC is presently investigating Israeli attacks on UNRWA schools in Gaza as sought by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. The UNHRC is expected to convene its ordinary meeting in Geneva on March 2 to discuss the findings of the investigations. On the same day, Cairo will host an international conference on the reconstruction of Gaza, estimated at $2 billion, the Egyptian foreign ministry said Friday. The meeting, to be held in coordination with the Palestinian Authority, would also deal with urgent humanitarian support. Preliminary estimates put the damage in Gaza after Israel's offensive at nearly $2 billion. Saudi Arabia has said it would donate $1 billion. Reconstruction could take three to four years.
