The Palestinian Authority leadership has authorized several missions in recent days. They are looking to join the following organizations:
Of particular note is the International Criminal Court of which the United States is not a signatory. The purpose of the PA’s move is to bring charges against Israel.
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas signed a request Wednesday to join the International Criminal Court, a move that would establish a new avenue for action against Israel after the UN Security Council rejected a resolution which aimed to establish a timetable for a full Israeli pullout from the West Bank and East Jerusalem.
“We want to complain about the harm caused to us and to our land,” Abbas said before signing the treaties. “But who shall we complain to? The Security Council refused our request. Where will we go? To the international organizations.”
Abbas said the Palestinians seek a fair solution to the conflict based on international principles, and that such a solution would help quell regional unrest. “We do not want anything more, but we will not settle for less,” he said. “Tonight we sign 20 different international treaties, even though we have the right to join any international institutions.”
The Palestinians hope ICC membership will pave the way for war crimes prosecutions against Israeli officials. Abbas did not specify Wednesday when he planned to file complaints against Israel, or the specifics of such intended complaints, which it may be feasible to file within the next few weeks.
Meanwhile, Israel is taking the offense and building their own case such that Abbas may want to rethink this strategy.
An Israeli defense analysis center released on Thursday the names of 50 Gazan terrorists killed in combat with Israel this summer, whose names have been concealed by Hamas from Palestinian casualty lists.
The Tel Aviv-based Meir Amit Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center said all of the combatant casualties were members of Hamas’s military wing, the Izzadin Al-Kassam Brigades.
“The names did not show up in other casualty lists publicized by organizations affiliated with Hamas and the Palestinian Authority,” said the Center, which is a part of the Israeli Intelligence and Heritage Commemoration Center, founded by leading members of the Israeli intelligence community.
According to the study, 52% of Palestinian casualties from the conflict were terrorists and 48% civilians.
A report released on Thursday said the newly identified combatant casualties belonged one of the following categories: Some were terrorists left behind in Israel after being killed in fire fights with IDF units during the summer war, others were of terrorists buried under tunnels or the ruins of buildings bombed by the IDF, and others were terrorists who died of their injuries in hospital and were not identified during hostilities.
“We believe that the 50 names, identified by us, represent a partial list and that there many other terrorists whose names are not included in the various casualty lists,” the Center added.
Prominent names on the list include members of the Al-Kassam Brigade’s naval commando unit, which is a part of Hamas’s Al-Nahba elite forces.
Four naval commandos, killed in Israeli territory during the July 8 Hamas raid on Zikim beach, are missing from Palestinian casualty lists, and appear in the list of 50 casualties.
So do the names of ten members of the Al-Kassam Brigades killed in Israeli territory during a cross-border raid on Kibbutz Nir Am on July 21.
The attempt to censor the names “stem from Hamas’s policy of deliberate concealment, in order to serve the diplomatic, media, and legal campaigns against Israel,” Dr. Reuven Erlich, head of the Terrorism and Intelligence Center, told The Jerusalem Post.
He urged international bodies that cite on Palestinian casualty lists to be wary, calling Palestinian casualty lists “not serious.
On the other hand, the report said, Hamas makes domestic use of the deaths of its operatives, despite their absence from formal casualty lists, by publicizing inside Gaza detailed information on them and the circumstances in which they were killed.
“This is in order to satisfy the families of those killed, to serve the glorification of Hamas’s military capabilities, and strengthen the myth of a ‘victory’ over Israel,” it stated.
The study cited an Israeli security source as saying that out of the 2,140 Palestinian casualties, some died of natural causes and accidents.
The source identified 886 names on the lists as terrorists, most (67%) from Hamas. Islamic Jihad casualties formed 22% of the identified terrorists killed. The remainder – 11% – belong to smaller terror organizations operating in the Gaza Strip.
Out of 712 noncombatant casualties identified by the center, 345 were children and 268 were women.
A third category of 542 casualties cannot be identified at this stage, the Center said.
