they are said to have been transporting those cases to the consul general office nice man but three who is a key figure a main suspect seller bakey who is also well known to have had a key part in the whole affair ghalib these three figures associated with that for the first time in more than nine months and has been delivered to more than fifty thousand people in the rock band camp in syria it's in a rebel held area surrounded by government forces more than seventy british business leaders have signed a letter calling for a second referendum on briggs it it follows a march by more than half a million people in london last month demanding another vote talks have been stalled over the status of the irish border. and those are the headlines will have borne news funerals here after upfront next. the right to quit. adequate who decides what is and housing is not just about four walls and

a roof it's about. have peace security and most important committee un special rapporteur. talks to al-jazeera. after more than seven years of a never ending conflict in syria does one of the world's most famous war crimes prosecutors believe they'll ever be justice for the victims and also on the show is god's on the brink of war. more than two hundred dead in gaza this year alone three palestinian kids killed in an israeli air strike earlier this week rockets fired into israel from gaza and will the verge of another all out war that's our discussion but first the world continues to fail syria with the international community unable to prevent crimes

against humanity war criminals were prosecuted both in rwanda the former yugoslavia but what chance of that happening in syria and couldn't leader of the united states or the u.k. ever be brought in front of an international tribunal headliner for war crimes chief prosecutor. thanks for joining me up front more than a year ago you resigned in protest from the independent international commission of inquiry on the syrian arab republic a special investigative committee set up by the u.n. you said you were frustrated that you gave up that there is no justice for syria you said why is that and who do you think is to blame. first of all i confirm what you are saying yes resign in protest to be. the security council. is guilty on this situation because the security council did not take a decision to put in. its regular doc or to be fair to the.

money into criminal court. so. after six years in the commission. trying to obtain justice for the victims and it was not possible nobody's listening to us to the commission and then see the. total impunity when you said that the u.n. commission was not backed by any political will for example which countries on the security council were you referring to which countries specifically lacked the political will that you were looking for or its well known needs russia first of all to russia and china and russia uses a victorian right so they stopped each resolution that want to to put in place the international tribunal it was not possible it is still not possible because russia is still putting an obstacle to each each decision

to tina justice for the victims isn't there a bit of a contradiction there when we hear you talk about russia because right now you're saying russia is to blame but in twenty sixteen when the russians were intervening in syria bombing in syria tilting the war in favor of bashar al assad you praised that you said it was a good thing that russia should intervene because quote someone is attacking these terrorist groups what is your position on russia in the syrian war because you seem to be all over the place. you know you must make it before into between the military as it is the justice justice bowing to the military binds a political party so if you see russia now russian probably trying to obtain a peace accord in syria as we as we know from the place but . military military aid was. not allow when.

a was helping the regime of assad and it was there fighting against terrorism you have other reports of this commission that you can read is that the ration is the responsible for civilians death and that is and as a result our understand the point you make us think separate about they can intervene to fight terrorism and kill civilians at the same time i'm saying but you are someone who sitting on a u.n. commission at that time do you regret making those comments because the at the moment you made those comments in february twenty sixth at that time amnesty was. for bombing civilian targets how could you investigate all crows while praising a party that's accused of war you know i disagree with you totally i disagree with you. because it is a war it always is going on seven years now and in this a very year or so you have a different event even in that the jude from the parties who are fighting these

this war end but equally the commission of crimes crimes against humanity and war crimes so even i remember speaking as former prosecutor i must telling your total impunity in syria and that east and acceptable and the security council is guilty. of that. if i am speaking about a member of the commission because the commission is about relation of human rights and didn't not teach violation of human rights is a crime so you can you can describe in this city ports that we present the council of human rights we describe what happened in reality ok and that then you had a little time that russia has intervention was justified because finally someone is attacking these terrorist groups but as you know the ass of government has labeled just about everyone who is on the side of the regime a terrorist what do you worry about kind of language from you member of the

commission would give a green light to syria and to russia to escalate their bombardment. no no no no no no nobody of rahm's a commission and not to me is given to the ration to bombard to absolutely not. intervene intervene we set aside the regime against terror is go by tikrit. and that for me was absolutely positive on may sixth two thousand and thirteen following a chemical attack in syria outside of aleppo two months earlier you said we have no indication at all that the syrian government has used chemical weapons and that according to what we have established so far it is at the moment opponents of the regime who are using sarin gas ever since you said that supporters of the assad government of used your quote to suggest it's the rebels who are carrying out all the chemical attacks not the assad government does that bother you and do you still stand by that statement. i absolutely stay on that statement because that also you

see it was at the beginning of the beginning of the use of chemical weapons so in one interview i said their first elements of evidence is that we have ethan's that they have dealt have used chemical weapons since then the commission established that the regime used chemical weapons but we were not able to investigate and we were not allowed to investigate unfortunately because until today you don't know exactly who or you always want to of came away about so you sort of the time you said we have no indication of our government you told them you said we have it is them by the lab the moment opponents of the regime who are using soaring this time but then i will tell you where we disagree that comments at the time of the very day the u.n. said at the time we wish to clarify the commission has not reached any conclusive findings on the use of chemical weapons did you speak too soon because your own u.n. colleagues disowned your remark at the time it's true that the my colleagues were

not happy about that but i think that if you tell the truth the best the best attitude that you can have and i asked former prosecutor i know that so. at the beginning of the use of chemical weapons the only elements we had a evolve very dense aware that their belts use it since then we have many others that episode and two we could establish a commission could establish that the regime used chemical weapons in their belts he was a good way but it's. more and more a result then that they have belts but but what i want to tell you is that. that the international community it in but in but security council and the u.n. don't do nothing to establish exactly who are responsible for the use of chemical weapons before syria. you were called the world's most powerful criminal lawyer you working as

a prosecutor for the international tribunals on war crimes in the former yugoslavia in rwanda slobodan milosevic famously attacked you with the new gas stop i think he called you you said some of the worst criminals of the twentieth century to prison why was justice possible in rwanda and in the balkans but not in syria because the security council didn't want that because the security council. don't want to just. see the avoid to be teams because of former yugoslavia and there was the security council. unanimously decided to go constituted a mission that i be on or linked to that to deal with the crimes that way they committed war crimes and crimes again your money and genocide but unfortunately it is a political decision from the security council while out an informational institution a dog to obtain just before the big teams. the weak point that it is

a political decision you will but the but those decisions are made not just by governments are made by prosecutors you once expressed a willingness to press charges against nato personnel for alleged war crimes in one nine hundred ninety nine in december ninety nine when you told the guardian you were up for that nato had broken the geneva conventions then six months later you change your mind you did one hundred percent u. turn and said major didn't do anything wrong you're not going to investigate them why did you do that. we open an investigation when we have concrete the element of evidence is and we had one element i remember very well it was a bombardment from an american pilot on civilians convoy and did the pilot say i see you have c.b.d. and and even see the order to bombard and. one hundred twenty civilians were killed we all pain and investigation. but it was not possible

to conduct this investigation in this investigation to the end that the leads and why. not but this is what you said in june two thousand there is no basis for opening an investigation into any of the allegations although some mistakes were made by nato i'm very satisfied that there was no deliberate targeting obviously was about you said although some mistakes were made by nato i'm very satisfied that it was not deliberate targeting of civilians no human rights groups don't agree with you and i don't know which. you were referring to the war in general you said during a no i'm quoting i am color i'm quoting you you said all let me know you were in general i am not speaking about the war in general you were reserve already nine thousand you said i'm very satisfied that there was no deliberate targeting of civilians by no two during the bombing campaign but human rights groups disagree with you you disagreed with you six months earlier these agree what to you are saying you are not correct in what you are the fairing that i am speaking about ok let me ask you now that since you disagree with your quote do you believe that nato

only made mistakes during its bombing campaign of kosovo and there were no potential war crimes worth investigating what's your position you told me i have one on one investigation i open just one investigation about the responsibility of nato committing crimes but i could not i could not end this investigation and issuing any died because it was not possible to collect. all this they've been using to cooperate with the tribunal. because india is not the only although in in other cases we could not ended our investigation because it was not able to collect enough to be dangerous to issue an indictment that the task of that procedure so to be clear then they may have committed war crimes is just you were not able to investigate it fully it's not that they're innocent of war crimes it's that you were prevented from investigated before way. that's what you're saying exactly ok exactly exactly last question directly do you think it's possible that

a president of the united states or a prime minister of the u.k. could ever be brought in front of a war crimes tribunal or is it a pipe dream is that a fantasy tale regularly foreseeable under the internation a low it's possible but in practice in practical it's not possible because that told you international justice is possible only if the political will is in existence but we must fight to obtain justice for all the victims of the volcker times crimes against humanity by the highly responsible political and military responsible for the commission of these crimes but. of course is the idea of situation nice away from from now only now i must see carla del ponte oh thanks for joining me on that front. ok. gaza is imploding and we remain on the brink of another potentially devastating

conflict the words of the un special envoy to the middle east this past week has seen even more violent and escalations with rockets fired from gaza into israel and an israeli airstrike killing three palestinian children in gaza since the great not to return protests began earlier this year israeli security forces have killed more than two hundred people in gaza and wounded more than eighteen thousand so is another full scale israeli attack on the strip inevitable joining me to discuss this a double mcintire former jerusalem correspondent for the independent and author of the book gaza preparing for dawn i'm not a palestinian humanitarian aid worker based in gaza thank you both for joining me up front let me start with you do you believe that another war in gaza is imminent because prime minister benjamin netanyahu claims he's trying to avoid one unfortunately the situation in gaza keeps on becoming more and more of. the fear of the people. is always to feel. loud.

and we must say that. almost every room. at risk of such escalation. disproportionate to the action of the israelis after. because there's a lot of. discussion that people are not fully or even privately aware of that are in the picture it's just becoming more and more complicated you can analyze our critic our critic. when things don't go yet again plagued by violence things look like they're escalating is this just depressing news out of gaza as we've seen week in week out year in year out for the last few years or is this a tipping point well i think there's not too we're saying it's a very very fragile and dangerous situation i mean i think the most positive thing

that one can say about it is that it's it seems like neither hamas nor is really want to right now if it can be avoided. and the egyptians are more in a war because they're worried that it will play back into the north if it happens. gazans face this really terribly difficult situation which is not just was saying you know one minute you're hearing that as a positive development because of the israelis of qatar to send in some few there seems to be a slight muting of the violence and then it blows up again. on the on the protests themselves what is the end game is there an end game is there an understanding you have out there in gaza the west what's going to happen next from the palestinian side from the protesters side. the problem is people are very desperate those who go to the border are young people who have unfortunately nothing to lose and they

want to do something they want to do something to change their lives i mean we have been for years and years and blockade we have no answer to anything we have been for a decade trying to do peace. and there is no answer and again there are no potential even. light at the end of the tunnel. these rallies called their frequent attacks on gaza quote moaning the law. what kind of strategy is that if you can even call it a strategy well i think it's right that particularly right wing commentators politicians in the zero do develop this concept which was absolutely should mean and in my view indefensible one which was that the way to pacify garza was every few years to go in in huge force as they did in two thousand and two thousand and twelve and again in two thousand and fourteen and

that will somehow keep garza quads now i think even some people in israel particularly in the military are beginning to wake up to the fact that for their own security reasons as much as anything else that may not be the best strategy but then on the other hand israel is coming up with a facing an election where there's a lot of right wing pressure to mow the grass and then one can only hope that pressure is resisted. nigel is a part of the problem though for the people of gaza that the leadership and the political conditions on the ground in gaza are so dire right now allows the israelis to say the problems in gaza are not caused by us they're caused by misrule they're caused by hamas they're caused by corruption it's nothing to do with us if gaza was a liberal democracy everything would be fine but it's all hamas is fault. of course

i mean that's part of the complication of of the of the picture here is the palestinian divide and we know that for a fact and it is harming the people of gaza and palestinians in general and the palestinian cause so. yes inside that are not troops but israel controls everything . that people cannot simply leave they cannot have their. basic health needs and that's not because of hamas that's because of israel now of course taking it to the next level between hamas and fattah that's a big problem and the palestinians are fed up but not till you're right to say that it's not the fault of hamas that there's a lack of health care or or the blockade but on the other hand human rights watch has a report out recently which pointed out the boats in the west bank and in gaza the palestinian factions hamas and the p.a. have been carrying out abuse torture deprivation of right how do people in gaza feel about the fact that they've got these rallies oppressing them from outside and

in many ways have got hamas suppressing them from inside. yeah unfortunately no one can deny that and unfortunately nobody is surprised by. such findings of raf such reports by both sides realize that. are not be accountable to their people and they are not they're not helping as as they should be and these violations are being fight against by the civil society in both areas but there is a lot a lot. of resistance from these factions. absolutely and it's all political the israelis always say that all the problems in gaza are the fault of hamas which is obviously absurd but in your experience in your view you were in gaza very recently you've written this book about. how much has hamas made things worse on the ground in gaza i don't just mean in material terms but i mean their very presence and the way they run the place has provided the interaction with excuse to maybe look away and say well you know the classic both sides are to blame yes well

look there's no doubt as niger was saying you mentioned human rights watch report i have some stuff in my book about. at times pretty repressively and there's no question and you know there are a couple your organization in that sense however after they were actions in two thousand and six which were attested by all international observers to be free and fair elections that it seems to me should have been that seems to me and i should say an increasing number of diplomats who are involved. now should have engaged with hamas and that was a terrible mistake rather than one hundred because of a little grain of look at precisely just on the u.s. role donald trump gerrard. are best buddies with netanyahu and co surely sadly there can't be any hope for gaza or the situation on the ground while trump is in office basically giving an american green light to anything that netanyahu

wants to do we know that if there is a. the full scale war in gaza the americans aren't going to lift a finger not that they did before but definitely not now now i think that's right for war i mean actually the rather conflicting signals of garza coming out of the administration i mean on the one hand we keep hearing rather tantalizing cushion and dream by working on some kind of rehabilitation plan for guards very much half the story of what's needed but that president abbas incidence this because he doesn't want a separate deal between the international community in israel on the one hand and hamas on the other and what exactly doing practically is cutting aid to the palestinians by president and in particular in an effort to take the refugee issue. or. cutting aid aid to on a mass disastrous or potentially disastrous in a place where over half the population are in fact refugees. we focus

a lot on the role of the americans in the west in backing israel but what about your arab neighbors what about egypt which has helped israel in this blockade of gaza or the u.a.e. which this week hosted israeli minister miri. do you feel abandoned by your arab neighbors. absolutely i feel abandoned but you know what i also feel that finally this is that reality that we have to see it and we have to face that. egypt and the closure of the border that we how they treat people. is extremely inhumane and it's extremely unnecessary even. situation with egypt's involvement in. of course out of their political interest and they must be part of this part of any deal. and so no i mean we are not considering this part of the. solidarity if you will so this is how this has been changing dramatically and

for the people of gaza what is the priority is it struggling to survive on a daily basis or is a still a sense of ending the occupation two state solution peace process what are the priorities right now for people on the ground do you think. you know the problem now is that yes there are the daily challenges of course and it's affecting more and more people than ever so the majority are busy with really securing their daily basic basic needs but in the bigger picture even if you want to speak to people who have who are suffering on daily basis. and they really have the ability to think a little bit about the bigger picture they don't have any trust in any solution i think what what now people are there i don't really kidding feeling is another political solution that can completely ignored their lives

again of the people more than before more than previous even previous basically meant that's what people realistically expect is that more denial of their rights and don't last question to you you've written this book on gaza you spent time in gaza you've reported from gaza do you think people in the west even in government not just members of the public recognize how dire the situation on the ground is in gaza has been many and no i don't and i think one of the tragedies of guards there actually is that if there's a or then huge attention swings around you know it becomes a big media story even when there are other things going on in the world and then as soon as that war is over it dies as a story and the suffering doesn't stop and the factors that are leading up to the next or are very widely ignored by the media and i think that's a huge problem. well we'll have to leave it there thank you both for joining me on

the show. next week. november on al jazeera radicalized youth a new hard hitting series comes face to face with the hatred and violence of militant groups that attract young people around the world on november fifth the u.s. will impose additional sanctions on iran targeting the oil sites we'll look at the impact that may have when migrant lives are in danger and see who should come to their aid people in power investigates the united states is getting ready for the u.s. midterm elections on november sixth join us for live coverage and analysis and a listening post continues to examine global media coverage and look behind the headlines november on al-jazeera.

to. the town. this is the most important election a final push for votes in the u.s. ahead of midterm elections which are being seen as a referendum on donald trump's presidency. alive a very unforgiving this is al jazeera live from doha also coming up media.