Saturday 4 July 2009

Law expert: Hamas did not violate int’l law and settlers are not civilians


[ 04/07/2009 - 10:55 AM ]

BEIRUT, (PIC)-- Dr. Hasan Johnny, a professor of international law at the Lebanese University, criticized Friday the report issued by Amnesty International (AI), saying that the Israeli settlers, living on usurped Palestinian lands, are not civilians and Hamas did not violate international law in Gaza war.

These remarks came during a seminar held in Beirut by AI and attended by specialists, jurists and representatives of Palestinian and Lebanese civil organizations who discussed the report issued by the organization about Israeli war crimes that also included accusations against Hamas.

Dr. Johnny said, during his speech, that what Hamas did was an internationally-recognized military necessity and not war crimes committed against civilians, adding that the Palestinian resistance attacked primarily Israeli military targets.

Most of the participants in the seminar castigated the report and called on AI not to equalize between the executioner and the victim. They also urged it to take into account the Israeli crimes committed on the ground regardless of the generality of international legal texts.

For its part, AI tried to defend its position, specifically its reported accusations against Hamas, where its regional director Ahmed Kar’ood said that the international humanitarian law rejects the targeting of civilians, but he hailed Hamas for its cooperation with the UN fact-finding committee.

In the same context, the popular resistance committees strongly denounced AI for equalizing between the executioner and the victim and holding Hamas responsible for the last Israeli war.

The movement said that such reports confirmed that some international institutions are associated with a Zionist agenda, promote Israel’s policies and justify its crimes, adding that the report gave Israel more excuses for the targeting of civilians.

The movement called on the international institutions and the free people of the world to stand in the face of the global Zionism and the Zionist crimes committed against the Palestinian people, so as not to be false witnesses to these crimes.

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