Dhaka urges ICC to act against Israel

FE Team | Published: August 18, 2014 00:00:00 | Updated: November 30, 2026 06:01:00

Bangladesh has urged the International Criminal Court (ICC) to take Israeli atrocities in Gaza into cognizance and bring the offenders to justice, reports bdnews24.com.
Foreign Minister AH Mahmood Ali Sunday said the Hague-based international tribunal should uphold its mandates to address the issue and expressed Bangladesh's readiness to extend "all possible support".
"It would be an affront to call this only as an Arab-Israel conflict. It is something far beyond," he said. "The humanitarian tragedy
that we witness in the Gaza Strip relates to the issues of humanity, morality, law, and war ethics".
Bangladesh is a party to the Rome Statute that gave birth to the criminal court mandated to prosecute individuals for genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes, and the crime of aggression.
"Bangladesh remains ready to extend all possible support to our Palestinian brothers and sisters to advance their just and legitimate cause in the ICC," the foreign minister said at a discussion on the Gaza situation in Dhaka.
Palestine ambassador in Dhaka Shaher Mohammad was also present among others.
The foreign minister said Bangladesh regretted that repeated appeals of the international community towards ceasefire and minimum level of humanitarian approach to the Palestinian people remained unheeded.
"We call upon the international community, including conscientious citizens of the world to exert their collective pressure on Israel to refrain from its atrocities, human rights violation, and indiscriminate killing of civilians including women, children and the elderly, on a sustainable basis".
He lamented "the absence of sufficient response and reaction" from the world powers to timely and effectively address this issue, including through the UN Security Council.
"We have pledged through the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) to pursue the issue through the UN General Assembly under an Algerian initiative in the face of the UN Security Council's inability to take a decisive action in this regard," he said.