Israeli Foreign Ministry has instructed a number of officials not to visit Spain as an international arrest warrant has been issued against them on suspicion of committing war crimes against Palestinians, local daily Yedioth Ahronoth reported Monday.
The instructions came after a Spanish human rights organization, which is believed to represent a Palestinian group, filed a lawsuit last week against Israeli officials involved in the assassination of senior Hamas member Salah Shehade six years ago, which killed 16 Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.
Nearly all heads of the defense establishment at the time of the assassination are on the list of defendants, including former Defense Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer and former Chief of Staff Moshe Yaalon, said the report.
Also on the list is former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, although the strongman has been in a coma since being hit by a stroke two and a half years ago, said the report, noting that Sharon gave the army the green light to assassinate the leader of Hamas' military wing.
The mass circulation newspaper added that Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni will ask the Spanish authorities to cancel such a lawsuit, arguing that the affair has already been discussed by Israel's official legal institutions.
Spain is a member of the International Criminal Court (ICC) based in The Hague. According to the ICC's constitution, any of its members has the universal judicial authority to try suspected war criminals, even if the defendants or the acts it is suspected of have nothing to do with that particular country.
Source: Xinhua
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