PA to Bring Israeli Organ Theft Case to ICC

Palestinian Authority officials say they will bring the case of Israel’s organ theft from Palestinians to the International Criminal Court in The Hague.

During a press conference held in Ramallah on Wednesday, Palestinian Minister of Prisoner Affairs Issa Qaraqe said the Authority will launch an investigation into the case and take the issue to The Hague and the UN, the Press TV correspondent reported.

The Palestinian Authority will gather more information to raise the issue in the International Criminal Court and the United Nations, he said. "Those Israeli criminals must be prosecuted for violating the international conventions including the 4th Geneva Convention" the minister added.

Over the weekend, Israel’s Channel 2 TV broadcast an interview conducted in 2000 with the then-head of Israel’s Abu Kabir forensic institute, Dr. Jehuda Hiss who revealed that forensic pathologists harvested organs from dead bodies, including Palestinians in the 1990s.

The Israeli military confirmed the report but claimed that "This activity ended a decade ago and does not happen any longer."

Meanwhile, at the same conference, Palestinian Health Minister Fathi Abu Maghli said, "We are now worried about the lives of our prisoners inside Israeli jails."

He explained the way the Israelis handed the bodies of some Palestinians to their families.

"They had even set conditions for these deliveries; don’t examine the bodies and bury them at night," Maghli said.

The issue of Israel’s organ theft made headlines last summer, when a Swedish newspaper published an article reporting that the regime had been stealing the organs of those Palestinians who were killed.

The article, entitled They plunder the organs of our sons, published by Aftonbladet, caused outrage among Israeli officials, who called it "groundless," "outrageous" and "anti-Semitic."

The author Donald Bostrom, however, said the purpose of his article was to call for an investigation into numerous claims made in the 1990s that such activity was going on.

(Press TV)

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