From his office on the tenth floor of a building overlooking the coastal area of the Gaza Strip, Palestinian human rights lawyer Raji Sourani looks at the mounds of rubble left by last month's Israeli Occupation bombing, as new files pile up in front of him to be submitted to the International Criminal Court.

Sourani says that the day in March the International Criminal Court's chief prosecutor decided to open a formal investigation into alleged Israeli Occupation crimes in the Palestinian territories since 2014 was "a joyful day."

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the decision "perfectly embodies anti-Semitism."

Since 2015, Sourani, 66, has filed dozens of cases with the International Criminal Court against the Israeli Occupation, which has besieged the impoverished coastal strip for more than 14 years, representing Palestinians he says are victims of "war crimes" committed by the Israeli Occupation. Palestinians can file lawsuits before the court after the Palestinian Authority ratified the Rome Statute of the Court.

Sourani, who studied in Egypt and Lebanon before founding the Palestinian Center for Human Rights in Gaza in 1995, believes that the investigation of these cases by the International Criminal Court "will allow the victims to restore their dignity and achieve appropriate justice."

- 'Dreamer rebels' -

"We are very romantic and dreamy revolutionaries," says the lawyer, who heads a team of about 60 people.

"The reality around us is very sad, very bad, and completely unbalanced."

The team is documenting potential evidence that may contribute to proving the Israeli Occupation's involvement in deliberately targeting civilians during the wars between it and the Gaza Strip, which is controlled by Hamas. The Israeli Occupation completely denies targeting civilians.

The files that Sourani collects deal with the siege of Gaza, the accounts of victims in the 2014 war, the suppression of the "Great March of Return" protests in 2018, and the latest war in May. It contains pictures of destroyed buildings, detailed lists of victims' names, reports of the missiles used by the Israeli Occupation army, and maps of the sites that were bombed... all neatly packed in dozens of files and lockers.

In May, Israeli Occupation bombings killed over 260 people in Gaza. 

But Sourani says, "In one word, shame on Israel," adding, "Wars happen between armies," noting that the Israeli army is "a mighty army in the Middle East that defies Iran and Hezbollah and bombs Syria...".

He added, "Civilians must be neutralized. Is Hamas the Al-Shorouk Tower, the Hanadi Tower, the Al-Jalaa Tower?", referring to the names of the towers that the Palestinians said contained housing and that Israel turned into a heap of rubble because it contained the headquarters of Hamas.

And Al-Sourani continues, "What is the relationship between water pipes and Hamas? What is the relationship between electricity and the sewage system with Hamas?"

The Israeli Occupation bombing caused great damage to the infrastructure in the overcrowded sector with more than two million people.

Sourani believes that the Israeli Occupation measures to "neutralize civilians" are insufficient.

Then he continues the comparison between the two sides of the conflict in response to defenders of the Israeli Occupation's right to defend itself, "One of the two sides owns combat aircraft, while the other side is a population under siege," adding, "Gaza is the largest open prison (...) they want to send us to the Stone Age." 

- Justice for all -

Sourani spent three years in an Israeli Occupation prison because of his political activism within the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. He says he used "every minute" in prison to study Israeli Occupation law and the Geneva Convention on International Humanitarian Law.

"I lived my whole life under occupation, no one can say that the Israeli occupation is just," he added.