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Former Gaza general eludes war crimes arrest in UK

Former Gaza general eludes UK war crimes charge
JON ELMER
The NewStandard, 13 September 2005

Ramallah -- The former head of Israeli forces in the Gaza Strip evaded arrest by Scotland Yard agents in Britain on a war crimes charge when he refused to disembark a flight from Israel at London's Heathrow airport on Sunday.

Agents were waiting with an arrest warrant in hand for retired Major General Doron Almog, who served as head of the IDF Southern Command from December 2000 to July 2003, but Israeli agents had reportedly warned Almog of the impending arrest.

The warrant was issued Saturday at a London courthouse for an alleged breach of the Fourth Geneva Convention, a statute regarding the treatment of civilians in occupied territory.

Israel signed the Geneva Conventions in December 1949 and ratified them in 1951; however, it has consistently held that the Conventions do not apply to the West Bank and Gaza Strip, lands which Israel occupied in 1967, because they were captured in a "defensive war."

Though Almog's alleged crime