The proprietor of a Gaza building housing international media, such as AP and Al Jazeera, that was bombed by an Israeli airstrike published that he will sue Israel to the International Criminal Court over the bombardment.
The criticism by Jawad Mehdi states that the strike on May 15 which smashed Jala Tower, housing the offices of Al Jazeera television and US news agency was a “war crime”.
The filing, a copy of which was escorted by AFP, attains after the chief prosecutor of the ICC announced last week that “crimes” may have been perpetrated during the contemporary violence between Israel and the Palestinians.
“The proprietor of this building, who is a Palestinian, has decreed his lawyers to sue a war crime complaint with the International Criminal Court,” lawyer Gilles Devers told in a report.
Devers said AFP outside the court, where near 10 pro-Palestinian protesters were gathered, that Israel could expose no military objective for the attack.
“We listen a lot that this tower could have been bombed because there was material or an armed resistance team. This is something that we completely refuse after investigating the case,” Devers spoke.
Further, he added “International law is that you can only wreck civilian property if it is used for military objectives, and that was not the situation. So we speak it today in front of this court and in this complaint.”
Devers declared the complaint would be formally transferred to the court by email later Friday.
Israel claimed that Hamas military intelligence units were in the bombed building.
Mehdi announced at the time that an Israeli intelligence officer threatened him he had one hour to ensure the building was evacuated before a rocket crashed into the 13-storey building.
The ICC has no commitment to consider complaints listed to its prosecutor, who can judge freely what cases to present to judges at the court.
The ICC had already initiated an investigation in March into possible war crimes in the Palestinian Territories since 2014.
The move incensed Israel which is not a part of the court, while Palestine has been a state mob to the ICC since 2015.
Prosecutor Bensouda stated last week that she recorded with “great interest the acceleration of violence” in the West Bank and Gaza “and the potential commission of crimes under the Rome Statute,” which established the ICC.
Thousands strolled through London and other towns in the United Kingdom on Saturday to protest against Israeli airstrikes on the Gaza Strip during combat with the Hamas group.
Protesters rallied for bans on Israel during the march in London. Some were dressed in Palestinian flags and set off green and red smoke glares. Others took banners representing “Free Palestine”, “Stop bombing Gaza” and “Bans on Israel”.
