British Arab Lawyers’ Association

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The Science Museum, one of Britain’s most prestigious public institutions, was embroiled in a row last night after being accused of promoting Israeli universities whose research was used in the country’s military campaign in Gaza.

More than 400 academics, a Nobel laureate and the former chair of the Science Select Committee called on the museum to cancel workshops due to be held this week that promote Israeli scientific achievements to schoolchildren.

• Court looks at whether Palestinians can bring case
• International pressure grows over conflict

The international criminal court is considering whether the Palestinian Authority is “enough like a state” for it to bring a case alleging that Israeli troops committed war crimes in the recent assault on Gaza.

The deliberations would potentially open the way to putting Israeli military commanders in the dock at The Hague over the campaign, which claimed more than 1,300 lives, and set an important precedent for the court over what cases it can hear.

As part of the process the court’s head of jurisdictions, part of the office of the prosecutor, is examining every international agreement signed by the PA to decide whether it behaves - and is regarded by others - as operating like a state.

GAZA LIES in ruins. After 22 days of ruthless Israeli aerial bombardment and ground assault, a survey of the carnage is as enraging as it is numbing: at least 1,285 Palestinians have been killed; 895 were civilians, including 280 children and 111 women. Another 167 of the dead were civil police officers, mostly killed on the first day of the bombing as they were graduating from a training course. Twenty-four hundred houses were completely destroyed, and 20,000 partially. Other infrastructure destroyed includes 28 public civilian facilities (ministries, municipalities, governorates, fishing harbors, and Palestinian Legislative Council buildings), 29 educational institutions (including Gaza’s Islamic University and American High School), 30 mosques, 10 charitable societies, 60 police stations and 121 industrial, and commercial workshops. There are reliable reports that Israel used the banned chemical weapon white phosphorus, which on contact with skin burns all the way to the bone.

Photos and reports on Gaza on TV, in newspapers and Internet websites, remind one of German cities, such as Hamburg and Dresden, following the Allied bombing during World War II. Scenes of destruction in Gaza streets and neighborhoods in 2009 resemble those of Beirut’s southern suburbs in 2006. In both events, totally or partially destroyed buildings and infrastructure, and slaughtered civilians were standard outcomes of Israeli attacks.

Many late-night TV documentaries of World War II battles show German cities, flattened by Allied bombings in 1942-45, shell-shocked civilians, wandering among the ruins, looking for family members if they are still alive, and searching for morsels of food and shreds of clothing to stay alive in the bitter cold winter.

From the International Federation for Human Rights, Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Network, International Commission of Jurists:

We are appalled at the horror of the war launched in the Gaza strip, the major loss of civilian lives and the wide scale destruction of civilian property and infrastructure in the context of the operation “Cast Lead,” as well as by the failure of the international community to prevent this tragedy.

Based upon the information our delegation received from Israeli and Palestinian human rights organisations, who have been monitoring the armed conflict, we have strong reasons to believe that Israel has grossly violated international humanitarian law, including the IVth Geneva Convention on the Protection of Civilian Populations in Times of Conflict and customary international law governing the conduct of hostilities. Some of these violations constitute crimes under international law.

Haifa — On paper, it has never been easier for Palestinians whose land has been appropriated by Israeli settlements to have their day in court.

Classified government data on settlements, made public in late January, documents for the first time precisely where settlements and parts of settlements have been built in violation of Israel’s own laws. The data reveals that in more than 30 settlements, buildings — including homes, roads, schools, synagogues and police stations — have gone up on privately owned Palestinian land.

The Israeli High Court of Justice issued its judgment on 19 January 2009 in two cases lodged by several human rights organizations to allow for the evacuation of civilians injured as a result of the mass bombardments in the Gaza Strip during Israel’s operation “Cast Lead” and to call upon the Israeli government to comply with its obligations under international law by supplying gas and electricity to the Strip, a petition that proceeds from the judgment first submitted in the case of Jaber al-Bassiouni in January 2008.

Concerned voices have been heard in the Muqata in Ramallah over the past few days: Senior Palestinian Authority and Fatah officials are speaking openly of the end of an era if an agreement to free abducted IDF soldier Gilad Shalit is reached.

Palestinian officials say a Shalit deal would bring about early elections in the territories, and Hamas would win again - but this time it would win the Palestinian presidential election, too. Israel would then be forced to deal with a Hamas-controlled Palestinian Authority in both the West Bank and Gaza Strip, they say.

From a Turkish perspective, Israel could not have committed a worse mistake than attacking Gaza and thereby blocking hopes for peace in the Middle East. Like many observers, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan blamed Israel for the human tragedy in Gaza. This response may not seem extraordinary if one remembers that he criticized Israel in the same way following earlier Israeli aggressions in the Occupied Territories.