Not ICJ or ICC, but resilience of its people will liberate Palestine: Rights activist

By Hassan Isilow

Courts will not liberate Palestine but the resilience of its people resisting occupation will, a leading Palestinian human rights lawyer said Saturday.

“The International Court of Justice (ICJ) is not going to liberate Palestine. The International Criminal Court (ICC) is not going to liberate Palestine. The resilience of Palestinian people standing on the ground paying with blood, pain and starvation. Those resisting will liberate Palestine,’’ Palestinian lawyer Raji Sourani said in his address on the second day of the first Global Anti-Apartheid Conference for Palestine in Johannesburg.

Sourani is the coordinator of Palestine's legal team representing victims at the ICC, and also a member of South Africa’s legal team that took Israel to the top UN court late last year accusing it of committing genocide in Gaza.

Israel has struck the Gaza Strip in retaliation for an Oct. 7 attack by Hamas which killed about 1,200 people. Nearly 35,000 Palestinians have since been killed in Gaza, mostly women and children, besides causing a humanitarian crisis.

The UN court, in its interim ruling in January, ruled that South Africa’s claims are plausible. It ordered provisional measures for Israel’s government to desist from genocidal acts, and take measures to guarantee that humanitarian assistance is provided to civilians in Gaza.

South Africa on Friday asked the ICJ to order Israel to withdraw from Rafah, the southern Gaza city home to 1.4 million Palestinian refugees, as part of additional emergency measures over the war.

Separately, the ICC, which has been investigating Israel's actions in the occupied Palestinian territories, is said to be contemplating arrest warrants for Israeli officials including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for possible war crimes.

“We will never give up. We will never lose the hope, we are on the right side of history. We know genuinely we are defending a just, fair and right cause," Sourani said.

“We are not alone. We are much stronger with the committed people across the globe,’’ the rights activist said, urging the audience to stay put in solidarity with the Palestinians.

- Time for Palestine’s freedom is now

Zane Dangor, director-general of South Africa’s Foreign Ministry, said several strategies including the legal route, lobbying and mass mobilization need to synergized for the freedom of Palestine.

Speaking of struggle against apartheid in South Africa, Dangor said by the 1980s they felt it was time for a change, and similarly it seems the time for Palestinian freedom is now.

“This is Palestine’s South Africa moment, lets seize it, let’s make sure we mobilize with all the tools we have available,’’ he said.