Palestinian envoy tells UN court Israel is killing Gaza civilians

The Hague, April 28: A Palestinian diplomat told the United Nations’ top court on Monday that Israel is killing and displacing civilians and targeting aid workers in Gaza, in a case that Israel criticized as part of its “systematic persecution and delegitimisation.” Israel denies deliberately targeting civilians and aid staff as part of its war with Hamas and did not attend the hearing at the International Court of Justice.
In The Hague, Palestinian Ambassador to the Netherlands Ammar Hijazi accused Israel of breaching international law in the occupied territories.
“Israel is starving, killing and displacing Palestinians while also targeting and blocking humanitarian organizations trying to save their lives,” he told the court.
The hearings are focussed on a request last year from the UN General Assembly, which asked the court to weigh in on Israel’s legal responsibilities after the country blocked the UN agency for Palestinian refugees from operating on its territory.
Lawyer Paul Reichler, representing the Palestinians, told judges that one of the Geneva Conventions “not only lays down that the occupying power must agree to relief schemes on behalf of the population, but insists that it must facilitate them by all the means at its disposal.”
UN Undersecretary-General for Legal Affairs Elinor Hammarskjöld said that “measures taken by the occupying power to ensure its security must be exercised in a manner that would not deny impartial humanitarian organizations such as the United Nations the ability to carry out relief schemes.” (AP)