Algeria Calls for Action on ICC Arrest Warrants Against Zionist Officials
NEW YORK (UN) – Algeria reaffirmed Monday that the arrest warrants issued by the International Penal Court (IPC) for two Zionist officials for war crimes and crimes against humanity in the Gaza Strip “are an important step” towards ending the immunity and impunity the Zionist occupier has enjoyed for decades.
Speaking at the monthly meeting of the Security Council on “The Middle East, including the Palestinian Question,” Algeria’s Deputy Permanent Representative to the United Nations (UN), Nassim Gouaoui said that in a context marked by the paralysis of the Security Council, the arrest warrants for two Zionist officials for war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza “nurture the glimmer of hope for Palestinians and freedom-loving people around the world.”
For Algeria, this measure “is a major step towards ending decades of immunity and impunity enjoyed by the Zionist occupier who committed crimes against the Palestinians and the whole region,” he continued.
In this regard, the diplomat underlined the need for the international community, primarily the IPC member States, to execute the arrest warrants and not to hinder the court’s work, stressing that “faith in an international order based on law and commitment to the supremacy of law are once again put to the test.”
According to him, any attempt to protect the occupation’s officials “means giving them free rein, encouraging them to continue destabilizing the Middle East and implicitly approving the conflict extension.”
“The silence of the international community in the face of the Zionist occupier’s crime and the indulgence of some have encouraged the Zionist entity to extend its war to Lebanon and Syria, and to threaten Iraq today,” affirmed Gouaoui.
The Middle East “is at a crossroads: either a definitive solution to the crisis by implementing law and ensuring rights or the enshrinement of the logic of force and impunity,” stressing the ambassador, who deplored the Security Council’s failure to adopt the draft resolution presented Wednesday by elected members.
“This paralyzed Council cannot even meet the most basic demands, like an immediate, unconditional and lasting ceasefire, raising questions on the effectiveness of this collective security system and the meaning of international law,” stressed the Algerian diplomat.
Every hour spent without succeeding in stopping the Zionist murder machine “means more suffering for the entire population of the Gaza Strip and hundreds of martyrs and wounded, the majority of them children and women,” warned the diplomat, calling for “halting the bloodbath in Gaza before hope is dashed in the hearts of the Palestinians.”
The war waged by the occupation targets not only Gaza but Palestinian existence on its lands, “as part of an abject racist project to annihilate Arab existence between the river and the sea,” he said, reaffirming Algeria’s condemnation of the Zionist occupier’s policy of expanding settlements in the West Bank, which it is even threatening to annex, in flagrant violation of international legality, notably Security Council Resolution 2334.
Algeria also condemned, through the voice of Nassim Gaouaoui, the systematic desecration of the Al-Aqsa Mosque and Muslim and Christian holy sites in al-Quds, calling for respect for the legal and historical status of these sites under Jordanian trusteeship.
It also condemned in “the strongest terms” the rise in settler terrorism and their increasing attacks on Palestinians and their property under the protection of the occupying entity, with the ever-increasing arming of settler gangs and the suspension of administrative detentions against them.
These are “despicable and reprehensible acts” that require coercive sanctions by the Security Council, “which must guarantee the implementation of its resolutions, as its credibility is at stake.” said the diplomat.
“Just a few days before the celebration of the World Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People, we reaffirm that the best way to show solidarity with the Palestinian brothers is to stop the genocide they are suffering and the attempts to bury their national project, by allowing them to enjoy their legitimate and imprescriptible rights to self-determination and the establishment of the independent State of Palestine with al-Quds as its capital”, concluded Gaouaoui.
