KUWAIT: The National Assembly’s foreign relations committee on Monday called on the government to join South Africa in its case at the International Court of Justice against Zionist genocide in its war on Gaza. South Africa filed the case on Dec 29, calling on the UN court in the Hague to order a halt in the Zionist entity’s bombardment against Palestinian civilians and also accused the Zionist entity of committing genocide in Gaza in violation of the 1948 Genocide Convention.

More than 23,000 Palestinian civilians, a majority of them children and women, have been killed and close to 60,000 others have been injured, some 70 percent of them children and women, as a result of barbaric Zionist bombardment of the densely populated territory of Gaza, where 2.3 million Palestinians, mostly refugees since 1948, live.

Several countries have already expressed their support for the South African move, but the Assembly committee wants Kuwait to join the African nation in its case. The committee called on the government in a statement to implement 13 recommendations passed by the National Assembly on Nov 1 during a special debate on the Zionist aggression on Gaza.

The committee recalled that one of the recommendations called on the Kuwaiti government to press for a trial of Zionist leaders as war criminals. It said it will invite the foreign minister for a meeting to coordinate efforts to face Zionist crimes against the Palestinian people.

Meanwhile, head of a parliamentary committee probing alleged wrongdoing in two major defense deals to purchase Caracal military helicopters and Eurofighters, MP Adel Al-Damkhi, said on Monday the panel ended its probe in the Caracals deal and found that some €349 million was squandered. He said that the probe found that ministers, undersecretaries, senior army commanders and officials were responsible for many actions and works that resulted in squandering public funds.

Damkhi added the probe also established that the French manufacturer had breached its commitments in the contract and that some officials covered up for the French company. He said the investigation panel called on the defense ministry to use some €400 million held from the contract to cover the ministry losses.