Pro-Palestinian organizations sue Dutch gov’t over Gaza ‘genocide’

Pro-Palestinian groups have sued the Dutch government, demanding that military sales to Israel be stopped and charging the government with failing to stop what they have called a “genocide” in Gaza.

According to report, they contend that as a strong supporter of Israel, the Netherlands is legally obligated to take all reasonable steps to prevent transgressions of international law and the 1948 United Nations Genocide Convention in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip.

A lawyer representing the coalition, Wout Albers, stated that the plaintiffs are to hold the Dutch state liable for not abiding to international laws.

Albers further disclosed that failing to intervene against violations of the Palestinians’ rights, committed by the state of Israel makes the Dutch government liable.

He made this known at a civil court in The Hague on Friday.

He said: “Today, the plaintiffs are here to hold the Dutch state accountable for failing to comply with international law by failing to intervene against violations of the rights of the Palestinian people committed by the state of Israel”.

“Israel is guilty of genocide and apartheid” and “is using Dutch weapons to wage war”, Albers added.

The plaintiffs are a partnership of Dutch and Palestinian organizations that fight for human rights in the Palestinian region.

Three of the organizations of the plaintiffs are based in Palestine.

The organizations asked the court in October to “include a ban on the export and transit of weapons, weapon parts, and dual-use items to Israel as well as a ban on all Dutch trade and investment relations that help maintain Israel’s unlawful occupation of Palestinian territory”.

Reporting from The Hague, Step Vaessen said while the court is “looking into whether the [Dutch] state should be obliged to stop sending weapons, the state says that this decision is not up to the court to decide and is foreign policy”.

Judge Sonja Hoekstra said: “It is important to underline that the gravity of the situation in Gaza is not contested by the Dutch state, nor is the status of the West Bank.”

However, she stated that the goal was to “finding out what is legally in play and what can be expected” of the government.

She said that it was a “sensitive case”.

Albers said, “today is not about judging political choices, but about ensuring fundamental respect for the international rule of law and protection against violations of international law.”

Vaessen claims that the demands made by the groups are based on earlier rulings by the International Court of Justice (ICJ).

This declared earlier this year that the occupation of Palestine is unlawful.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, and Hamas military chief Mohammed Deif were all given arrest warrants by the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague on Thursday.

They were given arrest warrants for suspected “war crimes and crimes against humanity”, according to report.

Foreign Minister Caspar Veldkamp of the Netherlands stated that his nation “respects the independence of the ICC”.

“We won’t engage in non-essential contacts and we will act on the arrest warrants.

”We fully comply with the Rome Statute of the ICC”, he added.

Since the Supreme Court has rejected multiple previous attempts to force the Netherlands to its duties to stop alleged violations of the Genocide Convention, it is uncertain how far the lawsuit launched by the pro-Palestinian parties will go.

The decision of a previous case, in which a judge ordered the government to stop exporting any F-35 fighter jet parts to Israel in February due to worries that they were being used to break international law, is also being built upon in this lawsuit.

Since October 7, 2023, Israel’s war in Gaza has resulted in at least 44,056 Palestinian deaths and 104,286 injuries.

During the day’s Hamas-led strikes in Israel, an estimated 1,139 people were killed and over 200 were captured.

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