Gift of the Givers to lay charges against Israeli PM

Gift of the Givers plans to lay charges against the Israeli prime minister for ‘the atrocities committed against the Palestinian people in Gaza’.

According to the founder and chairman of the NGO, Dr Imtiaz Sooliman, this comes after the organisation’s head of its Gaza office, Ahmed Abbasi, was killed while returning from a morning prayer with his brother.

Abbasi was a worker from Gift of the Givers who was helping people during the ongoing war.

“When Gift of the Givers saw the international call to gather a whole group of lawyers to take Israel to court, this was an idea for us, especially since the head of the Gift of the Givers office in Gaza, Ahmed Abassi, was killed directly by an Israeli strike coming back from his morning prayer, both him and his brother, Mohammed Abassi, were killed and we were not sure what to do. A few days ago, South African lawyers have also joined the cause,” says Sooliman.

He adds that he had been asked if he wanted to lay charges against Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli Prime Minister, and others who were deemed appropriate by the lawyers, and he decided to do so.

“The lawyers cannot do anything without evidence, and this is our role, we can provide evidence on behalf of Ahmed Abassi, his family members and those who were around and saw what happened. Our members in Gaza can provide this evidence.

“One of the members lost 50 members of her family in one single airstrike. We can get testimony from all these people. Collectively, it is close to 100 people who have died. In addition to that, we can collect testimonies from others.

“Palestinians in the country and our members on the ground, while doing the distribution of humanitarian work, can collect these testimonies, according to the law,” he says.

He adds that he also wishes to lay charges relating to war reparations, requesting compensation for every single person that has been killed.

“{We want to] charge [Israel] for psychological and emotional trauma for the family members that witnessed what was going on and to charge them for loss of income for emotional and psychological trauma,” explains Sooliman.