Bethlehem - Ma'an - The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine welcomes the adoption of South African jurist Richard Goldstone's report on last winter's Gaza war by the UN Human Rights Council, a party official said on Friday.

The vote marked the beginning of "the battle for justice, accountability and punishment of the war criminals and leaders of the occupation government, army and settlers," said Khalida Jarrar, a member of the leftist Palestinian movement's political bureau.

In an interview with Voice of the People radio on Friday, the PFLP leader said "such prosecutions are the very first steps in seeking justice for the people of Gaza and for the Palestinian people," and added, "The occupation will not be able to escape punishment for its massacres."

A resolution in favor of the Goldstone report, which found evidence both Israel and armed groups committed war crimes, was passed with 25 votes at the Human Rights Council in Geneva on Friday. Israel and the United States rejected it for what they termed its inherent bias in favor of the Palestinians. Goldstone also agreed that the UN resolution, rather than the actual report, was indeed one-sided.

In any case, Jarrar vowed that the public would also continue to ensure their own purported leaders were held accountable, as well, calling the UN move "a victory for the masses of the Palestinian people and their institutions and associations that responded clearly, strongly and vigorously" to the Palestinian Authority's "criminal delay of the report" in Geneva last month.

"This demonstrates the power of the Palestinian people to defeat the US, Israel and the Palestinian Authority forces that implement their pressures and demands, despite the international balance of power favoring US hegemony," she noted.

Regarding the PA's stalled negotiations with Israel, Jarrar added that "there is no 'peace process,'" and said "this so-called process is a sham and a public relations campaign."

Insisting that "any process of justice must begin with full accountability and prosecution for the occupier," the PFLP official called upon the UN General Assembly and the International Criminal Court to move forward on the report and condemn Israel for what she termed war crimes, reiterating the party's stance in favor of prosecuting "Israeli war criminals and leaders."

However, Jarrar took exception to sections of the Goldstone report that accused Palestinian fighters of targeting civilians, saying that while the document itself makes a distinction, others should also avoid equating "the position of Israel as the occupying power with that of the occupied Palestinian population or entities representing it."

Jarrar said the Palestinian people would reject any attempt to label the resistance as criminal or to infringe upon the right of an occupied people to defend themselves and end the occupation of their land, concluding that, as far as the PFLP was concerned, "the existence of an 'Authority' does nothing to change the reality of occupation and resistance."