July 24, 2008
Israeli officials wanted in Spain
The National Court in Spain has accepted a Palestinian court suit that was
filed less than a
month ago, and ordered the arrest of Binyamin Ben-Eliezer, the Israeli
cabinet Minister of
Infrastructures, and former commanders of the Israeli Occupation Forces
(IOF) chief of staff
Lt.-Gen. (res.) Moshe Yaalon, IAF chief Lt.-Gen. (res.) Dan Halutz (also a
former Chief of
Staff), Southern District Commander Gen. (res.) Doron Almog, former
National Security Council
head Gen. (res.) Giora Eiland, and Ben-Eliezer's military advisor Mike
Herzog for overseeing
the murder of leading Palestinian anti-occupation activist Salah Shehada.
The Spanish court is not alone in hearing a case against the Israeli war
criminals; the courts
of Britain, Switzerland, the Netherlands, and New Zealand had all
previously accepted cases
against the Israeli military.
The arrest orders are to be executed immediately upon the officials'
setting foot on Spanish soil.
The suit was filed in Spain by the Palestinian Committee for Human Rights
(PCHR), which said
that the one-ton bomb was too powerful to be dropped on a residential
neighborhood.
The PCHR spokesman said on Tuesday that the group is waiting to see that
justice and moral
compensation will come to the victims and the perpetrators of such a
hideous crime will face
the bitter consequence of their act.
Shehada was killed in an Israel Air Force strike in July 2002. 14
civilians were also killed
including his wife, children and elderly people.
An IOF fighter jet dropped a one-ton bomb over the Gaza neighborhood of
al-Daraj on July 22,
2002. The bombing left fifteen Palestinians dead, including eight children
and three women;
more than one hundred and fifty others were also wounded in the attack.
The strike drew widespread international condemnation for the high
civilian death toll.
http://www.tehrantimes.com/index_View.asp?code=173792
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