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Hamas files complaint to ICC over Israel's now-16-yr-old siege of Gaza

File photo shows Palestinian demonstrators standing alongside Gaza's border fence with the occupied territories, during a protest.

The Gaza Strip-based Palestinian resistance movement of Hamas has filed a complaint to the International Criminal Court (ICC) over Israel's now-16-year-old brutal blockade of the Palestinian territory.

The complaint has been filed by Hamas' lawmakers about the war crime and the crime against humanity that have been committed by Tel Aviv against Gazans in the form of the ongoing blockade, Lebanon's al-Mayadeen satellite news channel reported on its website on Tuesday, citing various news outlets.

It is set to be submitted to the tribunal by French lawyer Gilles Duvier, the channel said, citing Huda Naim, head of the Human Rights Committee in the Palestinian Legislative Council in the Gaza Strip.

"We are in a comprehensive battle with a criminal, colonial, settler occupation, which includes all arenas and fields, and the legal battle is one of the most important tools, because the occupation depends for its survival on military force and international support and cover," Naim said.

The complaint serves "to criminalize the Israeli occupation for its grave violations against the Palestinian people, especially the crime of blockade, and its flagrant violations of laws and charters," she noted.

Occupation as a 'fascist' entity

"There is a great need to exert every effort to strengthen the Palestinian narrative, reveal the fascist truth of the occupation, and expose its crimes to international public opinion," the Palestinian official stated.

Israel occupied Gaza and the nearby Palestinian territory of the West Bank during a heavily-Western-backed war in 1967.

The regime withdrew its forces from Gaza in 2005, but has been keeping the territory under an all-out land, aerial, and naval siege that has turned it into the world's largest open-air prison.

According to the United Nations, as a result of the siege, about 2.1 million Palestinians in the besieged sliver are locked in, with the vast majority of them unable to access the remainder of the occupied Palestinian territories and the outside world.


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