Jerusalem: Judges at the International Criminal Court in The Hague have decided the court has jurisdiction over war crimes committed in the Palestinian territories, paving the way for a possible a war crimes probe into Israeli military actions.
The decision prompted swift reactions from both Israel, which is not a member of the court and rejects its jurisdiction, and the Palestinian Authority, which welcomed the ruling.
ICC Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda said her office was studying the finding and would decide what to do next “guided strictly by its independent and impartial mandate” to prosecute grave war crimes and atrocities when countries are unable or unwilling to do so themselves.
The ICC judges said their decision was based on the fact that Palestine has been granted membership to the tribunal’s founding treaty, and had referred the situation to the court. The judges said the jurisdiction decision does not imply any attempt to determine Palestinian statehood, which is uncertain, or national borders.
“The court’s territorial jurisdiction in the situation in Palestine … extends to the territories occupied by Israel since 1967, namely Gaza and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem,” they said.
Bensouda had found in December 2019 that there was a “reasonable basis” to open a probe into potential war crimes “in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip”. But she asked the court to determine whether she had territorial jurisdiction before proceeding.
Read the article by Josef Federman in The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald.