00:00Two non-governmental organizations, NGOs, are bringing a case before the UN's top court
00:05against senior Israeli military commanders for allegedly authorizing the murder of those four
00:10Al Jazeera journalists. The Hind Rajab Foundation and the Palestinian Center for Human Rights have
00:14named the Israeli Chief of General Staff and seven others. They also accuse Prime Minister
00:18Benjamin Netanyahu of presiding over a strategy to eliminate journalists. Of course, the ICC has
00:24already issued arrest warrants for Netanyahu and the former Defense Minister Yoav Galant for war
00:29crimes. Joining us now is Dayab Abu Janja, the chairman at Hind Rajab Foundation. It is a
00:36non-profit organization mainly dedicated to the quest for justice in response to the crimes
00:40against humanity, war crimes and human rights violations against Palestinians. He joins us
00:45live now from Brussels. Thank you so much for joining us. Will this court filing, if you will,
00:52make any difference? Of course. Every filing can make a difference, but it is something for the long
01:00run. It is a cumulative effort. This filing and other filings and the fact that these crimes are
01:07being documented and are being put on the record of the ICC, but also of national prosecutors across the
01:15planet, that cases have are being brought against individuals, not just against political leaders,
01:22but against rank and file, against officers, against soldiers in many cases, is very important. It is
01:30something for the long haul. It is it is something that requires a lot of patience, but it is something
01:36that is instrumental in seeking justice. And we are convinced that this justice eventually
01:43will be served. Yeah, but you've done extensive work examining what happened two days ago.
01:53Give us a sense of what the chain of command was like and who you've identified as being the culprits.
02:00Yes, of course, in this kind of, let's say, open source intelligence forensic work, you have to depart
02:08from the smallest level and go and build up to the highest echelon in the chain of command. So what we
02:17try to do is not to jump immediately to the political responsibility, because it's quite obvious that
02:21Benjamin Netanyahu and his ministers are responsible for the systematic targeting of journalists and Gaza
02:29since the beginning of the genocide. However, what we try to establish is who shot the missile. And so we identified the
02:41drone type that was used. And then we could link that to one or two squadrons. But we are quite sure that it's one
02:51squadron called the Black Cobra, Black Snake Squadron, which is operating Hermes class drones. And then, of course,
03:01this is connected to the type of rocket that was used, which is a spike class type. You know, it's quite targeted
03:07because, as you know, the Israelis totally confessed that they were wanting or that they wanted to kill and killed
03:16Anas al-Sharif. So if you build upon that, then you end up at the Palmahim airbase, where these drones are being
03:24operated by several squadrons. Of course, then we filed against the squadron commander, we filed against
03:30the commander of the Palmahim airbase. And then you build up to the responsibility, obviously, of the Israeli
03:37Air Force commander, but also the chief of staff, including also some responsibility for the unit 8200,
03:44which gathers intelligence, military intelligence, cyber intelligence, and actually was spying and
03:51using the data of the phones of not only Anas, but also other journalists to assassinate them. So
03:59it's a complex image. And we wanted to make it clear that this is something that involves a lot of
04:05planning and that involves also decision up to the highest echelon of the chain of command.
04:10And the thing is, it's now become a systematic playbook. You start smearing the person first,
04:17and then it goes from there.
04:20Exactly. Exactly. And this is also why we targeted in our filing, we targeted Abhigai Adray,
04:27who is the head of the Arab media unit within the Israeli propaganda machine, because,
04:34you know, this targeting, this smearing is not just smearing, it is actually preparing the ground
04:40for the assassination. It is part of the crime. So it was very important also to observe and to
04:48compare. We did not only file and related to the assassination of Anas al-Sharif and his colleagues,
04:54but also we added several files that have been meticulously documented through a period of,
05:02you know, assassination to show that there is a, indeed, as you say, a playbook, there is a system
05:08that is being used and deployed, which is, you know, accuse these journalists of being covered
05:14terrorists and then pass to threats and eventually end up killing them. And the idea, of course,
05:21the goal is to totally, you know, blind the operational scene in Gaza. And the assassination
05:31of Anas is definitely connected to the fact that the Israelis at this moment are planning to escalate
05:38their onslaught on Gaza. So this is something that is very sinister and very, you know, cynically
05:45insane. It is, it is the, the level of impunity with which the Israelis are communicating about this
05:54is something that is, you know, that should shake everyone. You know, not only on the level of the
06:00humanity, but on the level of the hubris and the dangerous mindset of this, of this Israeli state at the
06:08moment. And the thing is, it was entirely contemptuous of human norms and values and decency. It was
06:15blunt. It was almost arrogant, if you will. And what made it even perhaps doubly worse was that Anas
06:22knew that it was coming. Absolutely. Absolutely. And, you know, you know, just for the sake of the
06:28argument, even though this is totally judicially nonsense, I mean, they're saying that, you know,
06:35the targets or, or Anas al-Sharif in that case is sympathetic to Hamas and showing some, you know,
06:41pictures and some other stuff. But even if it was the case, you know, even if someone was or is,
06:49which I'm not saying it is because it's totally fabricated, but even if he was, and he is not
06:54today, he is non-combatant, he's a journalist. I mean, for God's sake, even when you have prisoners
07:00of war who were combating you, who were combatant five minutes ago, and when they surrender and
07:06they drop their weapon and they are not armed, they are no more combatant and killing them is a
07:10war crime. Just to show you the level of, you know, disregard of international rules that the
07:16Israelis are operating with, because they know this very well. I mean, it is totally, you know,
07:21shocking to me from a legal perspective. But of course, as you said, also on the human level,
07:27but I guess on the human level, we've already seen this, you know, the last two years. But
07:32this behavior shows now that they are totally gone wrong in terms that they are not caring anymore
07:40in sugarcoating any of the murders that they are committing. And they are not at all caring about
07:45what the international law says. And his words echo across the world, do they not? If these words of
07:56mine reach you, you know that Israel has succeeded in killing me and silencing my voice. The Abu
08:01Janja is chairman of the Hind Rajab Foundation.
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