After receiving a formal notice on July 7, the Belgian State is officially quoted to appear in summary proceedings before the Court of First Instance Francophone in Brussels. The right collective for Gaza, supported by Palestinian victims, the Belgian-Palestinian association (ABP) and the National Coordination of Action for Peace and Democracy (CNAPD), criticize its inaction in the face of the alleged crimes committed by Israel in the Gaza Strip.
The formal notice had been sent on July 7 to the Prime Minister and to the Ministers of Foreign Affairs, Finance and Mobility. The signatories denounced a serious breach of Belgium to its international obligations, in particular in matters of prevention of the genocide. In the absence of an answer, the case will now be brought in summary proceedings.
The applicants ask the courts to order Belgium to Belgium several urgent measures: closure of its airspace and land space to the transport of weapons to Israel, prohibition of trade with the Israeli colonies, suspension of the EU-Israel agreement, freezing of the assets of Israeli leaders or even stopping all institutional cooperation with Israel.
Right for Gaza denounces a “guilty tolerance” from the Belgian authorities. “The Belgian state does nothing while measures are legally imposed,” said Anne-Laure Losseau, lawyer on the initiative of the collective. ABP spokesperson Grégory Mauzé talks about an “objective complicity of an in progress genocide”.
In response to the formal notice, the cabinet of Prime Minister Bart de Wever (NV-A) had assured in the newspaper that he “would respond in an appropriate manner” but had refused to legally comment on the text via the press. The Minister of Foreign Affairs Maxime Prévot (the commitments) had deplored an action which “will be over our courts” and had deemed “unfair” to claim that Belgium does not act.
