The UN is gathering evidence that could potentially be used in future prosecutions of those involved in Israel’s expulsion of French-Palestinian human rights lawyer, Salah Hamouri.
A team of senior UN investigators stated that they have “a list of potential individuals involved in al-Hammouri’s forcible expulsion, including employees of El Al Airlines, which was used to deport him and his staff.”
The Israeli occupation had detained the 38-year-old lawyer al-Hammouri without charging him, on accusations that he was a member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP).
Al-Hammouri, who denies the allegations and maintains his innocence in several cases, was expelled after his East Jerusalem residency permit was revoked on charges of “breaching loyalty to Israel,” a move immediately condemned by the United Nations Human Rights Office as a “war crime.”
The United Nations committee investigating the situation in the occupied Palestinian territories confirmed in a report that al-Hammouri’s expulsion constitutes a grave violation of international humanitarian law.
“Demanding allegiance from protected people in occupied territory is a reprehensible violation of international humanitarian law,” Chris Sidoti, one of the three commissioners, said in a statement.
In its second report to the United Nations Human Rights Council since its establishment in 2021, the committee stated that it has “retained information on individuals who may bear criminal responsibility within a list of potential perpetrators.”
The committee also noted that al-Hammouri’s deportation raises questions about whether individuals within El Al Airlines were aware of his unlawful deportation and thus “may have committed a war crime by assisting in the commission of a war crime, inciting it, or aiding in its commission.”
It further stated that it intends to continue investigating the criminal responsibility of all those involved in the forced deportation.
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