1 December 2024
Killing of Hind Rajab (5): MRN supports Hind Rajab Foundation’s lawfare campaign against Israel

Media Review Network (MRN) announces that it has endorsed Hind Rajab Foundation’s (HRF) extremely crucial lawfare campaign seeking prosecution of Israel’s war criminals in its army of killers.

The HRF submitted a landmark complaint to the International Criminal Court (ICC) at The Hague, listing 1000 Israeli soldiers accused of war crimes in the besieged Gaza Strip.

The HRF is adamant that the complaint includes irrefutable evidence – testimonies, video footage, and detailed documentation – demonstrating the systematic targeting of civilians and the violation of international humanitarian law. It has further announced that copies of the complaint, along with detailed evidence, have now been delivered to eight nations through their embassies at The Hague.

In a statement issued by the HRF, it explains that the countries selected are due to their stance for justice in Palestine. These countries include Spain, Ireland and South Africa.

It has urged these states to take decisive action by activating their own legal systems to prosecute the soldiers involved. In addition, it calls for the mobilisation of Interpol to issue international arrest warrants.

HRF spokesperson Dyab Abou Jahjah explained: “We have deliberately chosen nations that we consider advanced in their support for justice in Palestine, and we are confident that they will lead by example”.

At MRN, we agree that these countries, including our own South Africa, must uphold their commitment to international law to ensure war criminals indicted by HRF face justice.

In addition to endorsing HRF’s bold campaign, we also share its commitment to breaking the settler colonial regime’s cycle of impunity as well as honouring the memory of Hind Rajab and the tens of thousands of Palestinians savagely killed in the Gaza genocide.

Hind Rajab was a five-year-old Palestinian girl in Gaza. As her family sought to escape the relentless bombardment in Tel al-Hawa, their car was mercilessly targeted by an Israeli tank in an attack that can only be described as a war crime.

Hind survived the initial barrage, only to be left alone in the blood-soaked car, surrounded by the bodies of her loved ones.

Her desperate cries for help, as she begged for rescue on the phone with emergency services, moved hearts around the world. The ambulance that was sent to save her, after hours of negotiation, was obliterated by the Israeli army, ensuring that Hind’s life was cruelly and deliberately extinguished.

Driven by a profound commitment to justice, seeking to hold perpetrators accountable and ensuring that the stories of the victims are never lost to history, we call on the government of South Africa to spare no effort in pursuing Zionist war criminals.

We remind the National Prosecution Authority (NPA), in particular its national director Advocate Shamila Batohi, that a huge number of complaints, including bulky dossiers of comprehensive evidence that it possesses in respect of South Africans in violation of the Foreign Military Assistance Act (FMAA), awaits urgent action.

We also call on the country’s wide array of human rights organisations, including solidarity movements, to support HRF’s ground-breaking efforts.

Iqbal Jassat – Media Review Network
Johannesburg, South Africa. 

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