The Arab League Council urged today the International Criminal Court to open a criminal investigation into the war crimes committed by Israel.
The call came in a resolution issued at the conclusion of the work of the 157th regular session, at the level of foreign ministers, which was held at the headquarters of the Arab League in the Egyptian capital, Cairo.
The Council stressed the importance of the reports of international human rights organizations, including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, which expose, with evidence, the apartheid policies imposed and practiced by Israel against the Palestinian people.
The Council noted that Israel imposes apartheid through systematic policies, legislation, and plans aimed at persecuting, suppressing, dominating, and dispersing the Palestinian people, undermining freedom of movement, obstructing family life, forced displacement, unlawful killing, administrative detention, and torture.
The council added that the occupying state also imposes deprivation of freedoms and basic rights, undermining political participation and curbing the economy and development of human rights, the expropriation of land and property, and other racist practices against the Palestinian people.
These practices and policies constitute a crime against humanity and a flagrant violation of relevant international laws, including the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, the International Convention for the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid, and the Rome Statute Basic Law of the International Criminal Court, the council affirmed.
The Council also called on the countries of the world and international organizations to assume their responsibilities and to confront the Israeli policies, legislation, and practices that undermine the achievement of the independence of the State of Palestine and eliminate the peaceful two-state solution and establish an apartheid regime against the Palestinian people.
It stressed its refusal for Israel to obtain the African Union observer membership, which contradicts the principles and values of the African Union against colonialism, discrimination, and apartheid.
The Council as well urged the International Criminal Court to proceed with the criminal investigations of war crimes and crimes against humanity committed by Israel against the defenseless Palestinian people, including the forced displacement of Palestinians from their homes in occupied East Jerusalem, and calling on the Court to provide all human and material capabilities for this investigation and give it the necessary priority.
The Arab foreign ministers warned against the deterioration of the current situation in East Jerusalem in a manner similar to the conditions that preceded the Israeli aggression on the Gaza Strip in 2021, stressing the need for Israel to assume its responsibilities as an occupying power to maintain calm on the ground, and praising Egypt to implement the second phase of efforts of the reconstruction of the Gaza Strip.
The Council reiterated that East Jerusalem is the capital of the State of Palestine, and rejected any attempt to undermine the right to Palestinian sovereignty over it, strongly condemned and rejected all systematic and illegal Israeli policies and plans aimed at legitimizing the annexation of the Holy City, distorting its Arab identity, changing its demographic structure and undermining its expansion and isolating it from its Palestinian surroundings.
The council condemned, what Israel is doing to seize the lands of Jerusalemites and the illegal demolition of their homes, including the recent Israeli campaign to demolish and seize residential buildings in different areas and neighborhoods of the city.
The Council condemned and rejected any move by any party to drop the right of return or distort the Palestinian refugee issue, through attempts to resettle, or liquidate the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA) and stop its funding, or the so-called redefinition of the legal status of Palestinian refugees, with the aim of depriving generations of Palestinian refugees and the descendants of their right to return.
The Council rejected the systematic Israeli campaigns against UNRWA, including the attempts to close all the Agency’s centers and schools in the occupied city of Jerusalem and replace them with Israeli occupation institutions.
It also rejected any decision to stop or reduce UNRWA’s funding, which exposes entire generations of refugees to lose health and educational service, stressing that such attempts to terminate the refugee issue, which is an integral part of the final solution issues.
The Council condemned the systematic Israeli measures aimed at undermining the Palestinian economy and depriving the Palestinian people of their inalienable right to development.
It called on the international community to work on enabling the Palestinian people to control all their resources and exercise their right to development over their entire land occupied in 1967 and its territorial waters, condemning all Israeli practices, procedures, and laws aimed at draining, eroding, wasting or threatening Palestinian natural resources and wealth.
The Arab League Council urged Arab countries to abide by the decisions of the League of Arab States and to activate a monthly 100 million US dollar safety net as soon as possible in support of Palestine to face the pressures and financial crises it is going through.
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