Israel must stand trial for committing ‘4 core international crimes’ in Gaza: Iran deputy FM

An Iranian deputy foreign minister says the Israeli regime should be brought to justice for all four core international crimes it committed against the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip during its latest large-scale military operation.

Reza Najafi, Iran’s deputy foreign minister for legal and international affairs, made the remarks in the 28th session of the Conference of the States Parties to the Chemical Weapons Convention in The Hague, the Netherlands, on Monday.

“During the past eight weeks, the Israeli regime has committed all four core international crimes, namely genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity and the crime of aggression repeatedly and concurrently,” he said.

“This entails the international responsibility of the Israeli regime and its supporters as well as the individual criminal responsibility of all those who ordered and committed such crimes or facilitated, aided and abetted their commission, including by providing the required means,” he added.

The senior Iranian diplomat emphasized that all those responsible for the crimes against the Gazans shall be held to account and be brought to justice.

Since the beginning of Israel’s war on Gaza on October 7, more than 15,000 Palestinian civilians have been killed only in Gaza while over 6,000 are still missing and more than 36,000 are wounded, Najafi said, adding that over 70 percent of those killed, missing or wounded are women and children.

He reiterated that in addition to these figures, the “horrifying” reports and “heart-breaking” images of Israel’s barbaric invasion once again revealed, clearly and undeniably, the very “murderous” nature of the regime which possesses weapons of mass destruction (WMDs), including chemical weapons in its stockpiles.

Najafi emphasized that Israel’s crimes along with a call by a regime’s minister for dropping even a nuclear bomb on the Gaza Strip once again proved the serious danger of the Israeli chemical weapons for the regional and international peace and security.

He stressed the importance of making every effort for the speedy universalization of the Chemical Weapons Convention, particularly by compelling the Israeli regime to join it without any precondition or further delay.

Israel is the sole possessor of nukes in the Middle East. The regime, which pursues a policy of deliberate ambiguity about its nuclear weapons, is estimated to possess 200 to 400 nuclear warheads in its arsenal.

Unlike Iran, Israel has not signed the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and continues its unsupervised nuclear activities with the support of the United States and European countries.