This is not an academic or a legal issue. It affects each and every one of us. To this day Israel pursues those responsible for crimes committed during the holocaust. This is right, and just. Yet this same principle must be applied to all.
Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR), 22 June 2009
Speech Presented to Conference in Madrid on Behalf of PCHR Director, Raji Sourani
Dear friends, comrades, partners in civil society, and national and international human rights organizations, thank you all for coming, and for joining us here today.
Today, the Gaza Strip lies in ruins. Five months after Israel’s criminal offensive, which cost the lives of 1,414 Palestinians – 83% of whom were civilians – and injured 5,300 others, recovery is impossible. The siege of the Gaza Strip, an illegal form of collective punishment imposed on Gaza’s 1.5 million inhabitants, has now been in place for over two continuous years. Individuals are denied their rights to freedom of movement, people and goods cannot enter or leave. Israel has systematically suffocated the economic and social life of the Strip, and created a humanitarian crisis. In Gaza today there is not even the concrete with which to build a tombstone. Five months after the end of the war, the situation in Gaza is exactly the same as it was on 18 January. Only the weather has changed.
It is because of this illegal siege that I cannot be here with you today. However, I hope that through this speech my words can still reach you.
On 29 January 2009 we were happy and proud. The Spanish Audencia Nacional had asserted that it would launch an investigation into the events surrounding the Al-Daraj attack in Gaza in 2002. This war crime killed 14 civilians, wounded approximately 150 others, and completely or partially destroyed 38 apartment buildings. It was a proud day across the globe, for all those who seek to uphold the rule of law, and to pursue accountability. It was especially significant coming so close as it did after the end of Israel’s war on Gaza. The Spanish judiciary had shown their independence and their integrity, continuing the trail of accountability from Pinochet to Ben-Eliezer.
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