RESTRICTION SUMMARY: Bureij - 07 December 2021. Members of Ziada family gather at their home after a Dutch appeals court in The Hague upheld a lower court's decision to throw out a civil case against Israel's defense minister and another former senior military officer over their roles in a deadly 2014 airstrike in Gaza which killed six members of the Ziada family, at al-Bureij refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip.

0.1 SOUNDBITE (in Arabic) Saad Eddin Ziada.

STORYLINE:

Ruling on Tuesday that Israeli military leaders are immune from civil lawsuits over war deaths, The Hague Court of Appeals sided against Ismail Ziada, a Palestinian-Dutch man seeking 500,000 euros ($560,000) for a fatal airstrike during the 2014 Gaza Wa.

Ziada’s family home was reduced to rubble died in the attack, and six of his family members, including his 70-year-old mother and a 12-year-old nephew, were killed, along with a family friend who was visiting at the time.


Palestinians are unable to bring cases in Isreal accusing the military of war crimes, but Dutch civil law allows people to file complaints about events that happened outside of the Netherlands if the claimant has strong ties to the Netherlands and is unable to sue in the other country.

In 2018, Ziada filed a civil complaint against Benny Gantz, now Isreal’s minister of defense, and another top Isreal military leader, Amir Eshel. During the conflict, Gantz was serving as the chief of staff of the Israeli Defense Forces and Eshel as the commander of the Israeli Air Force.

Lawyers for Ziada argued during a 2020 hearing that immunity cannot be given in cases involving war crimes and, under universal jurisdiction, the Netherlands has jurisdiction to prosecute. "I can’t stop war crimes," Ziada told the judges during the hearing. "You, honorable judges, can. So, please: Do not fail me. Do not fail justice."

Rejecting the appeal Tuesday, the three-judge panel said national courts must remain neutral when the national interest of other countries is in question. In this way, national courts are unlike the International Criminal Court, for example, which is also based at The Hague.

The 2014 Gaza War, referred to by Isreal as Operation Protective Edge, lasted less than two months but left thousands dead

Footage by APAwire