This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: Yes, we’re in Baku, Azerbaijan, for the U.N. climate summit, COP29. I’m Amy Goodman.
But we’re turning now to the International Criminal Court’s historic decision to indict Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, as well as Hamas commander Mohammed Deif. In a statement, the ICC said the Israeli leaders had “intentionally and knowingly deprived the civilian population in Gaza of objects indispensable to their survival, including food, water, and medicine and medical supplies, as well as fuel and electricity,” unquote.
On Thursday, Netanyahu slammed the International Criminal Court for making what he called an “antisemitic decision,” unquote. The Biden administration also criticized the ICC. This is White House spokesperson Karine Jean-Pierre.
PRESS SECRETARY KARINE JEAN–PIERRE: We fundamentally reject the court’s decision to issue arrest warrants for senior Israel officials. We remain deeply concerned by the prosecutors’ rush to seek arrest warrants and the troubling process errors that led to this decision. The United States has been clear that the ICC does not have jurisdiction over this matter.
AMY GOODMAN: But other nations, including Italy, the Netherlands and Canada, have vowed to comply with the ICC arrest warrants.
On Thursday, Nermeen Shaikh and I spoke to Raji Sourani, the founder and director of the Palestinian Center for Human Rights in Gaza. The award-winning human rights lawyer fled Gaza after Israel bombed his home. He is the winner of the Right Livelihood Award, as well as the Robert F. Kennedy International Human Rights Prize. He spoke to us from Cairo, Egypt. I asked him to respond to the International Criminal Court ruling.
RAJI SOURANI: This is a great day, great day for justice and dignity of man. It’s a great day for the rule of law. And this day makes us remember all these souls of children, women, civilians, all the destruction, all the starvation and displacements Gazans suffered for the last 13 months in this ongoing genocide, which broadcasted live on air at the real time to the whole world and costed us so far 44,000, has been killed. More than 70% of them are civilians. And not only that, but 140,000 has been injured. One-third of them will die because there is no access for medical equipment or medicine or even food. So, it’s a great day to have these genociders, finally, with arrest warrants and wanted for justice at the most important court on Earth.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: Well, Raji Sourani, could you respond to the way that the Israeli prime minister has responded to this news? The prime minister’s office declared in a statement on Thursday that the ICC’s “antisemitic decision” to issue arrest warrants against Netanyahu and Gallant is, quote, “equivalent to a modern Dreyfus trial.” Your response, Raji Sourani?
RAJI SOURANI: I mean, no new news in this. They are very arrogant. They are very jealous. The West, especially U.S. and Europe, made Israel feel they will never, ever they will be held accountable. They feel they are immune. They are doing all what they are doing and that they lied, and they don’t hide it. They attack children cancer hospitals at the daylight. They attack hospitals and doctors. They rape prisoners, by the army in the army detention centers. They kill women, children at the daylight. They starve people. They criminalized UNRWA, the body which should serve the Palestinian refugees in the Gaza Strip, the only body which is doing and delivering that. And nobody holds them accountable.
Look, last night, this ugly veto of the U.S. to the Security Council against ceasefire, just to stop genocide. By whom we are killed? By which bombs and missiles and airplanes? It’s American. It’s European. They feel they are fully immune, they are free to do whatever they can, they will never be held accountable, and why their appetite for crimes growing like a snowball every day. Like, now they are talking publicly, “We’ll clean Gaza from this 2-and-a-half million people, and we will settle in it, and the settlers will be there.” And they began to sell the land of Gaza to the settlers and to sell the apartments. And they declared their intention about West Bank and the cleaning of it. This is unprecedented that such state, Israel, having all these crimes, war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide, and just be dealt normally. This criminal, while he’s doing genocide, he came to the Congress, and he was received by everybody, and everybody was applauding him and his acts, more than the president of the United States. So, he’s a criminal. He deserves accountability.
AMY GOODMAN: That’s Raji Sourani, founder and director of the Palestinian Center for Human Rights in Gaza, where he was born. The award-winning human rights lawyer fled Gaza after Israel bombed his home last year. To see the full interview, go to democracynow.org. Raji was speaking to us from Cairo, Egypt.
