JERUSALEM (AP) – The International Criminal Court’s chief prosecutor launched an investigation into alleged crimes in the Palestinian territories on Wednesday, focusing the tribunal on Israeli military action and the construction of settlements on land captured during the war in the Middle East. East of 1967.
The decision was an embarrassing blow to the Israeli government, which had conducted an aggressive public relations and behind-the-scenes diplomatic campaign to block the investigation. It also pointed out the possibility of arrest warrants being issued against Israeli officials suspected of war crimes, making it potentially risky to travel abroad.
“The State of Israel is under attack tonight,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a videotaped statement. “The biased international court in The Hague made a decision that is the essence of anti-Semitism and hypocrisy.”
“I promise we will fight for the truth until we overturn this scandalous decision,” he said.
Fatou Bensouda, the outgoing district attorney’s decision, had been expected since the court ruled last month that she had jurisdiction over the case. A preliminary investigation by Bensouda in 2019 had found a “reasonable basis” for opening a war crime case.
In a statement, Bensouda said the investigation will look at “crimes under the jurisdiction of the court and alleged to have been committed” since June 13, 2014. She said the investigation will be conducted “independently, impartially and objectively,” without fear or favor. ”That task is now being handed over to Karim Khan, the British attorney who will become the court’s chief prosecutor in June.
Wednesday’s decision focuses the court’s attention on two key Israeli policies in recent years: the repeated military operations against Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip, marked by a devastating war in 2014, and the expansion of Jewish settlements in East Jerusalem and the occupied West Bank. Experts say Israel could be particularly vulnerable to persecution because of its settlement policy
Although the Palestinians do not have an independent state, they were granted observer status as a non-member in the UN General Assembly in 2012, allowing them to join international organizations such as the ICC. Since coming to court in 2015, they have pushed for an investigation into war crimes against Israel. Israel, which is not a member of the court, had said it has no jurisdiction because Palestine is not a sovereign state.
The Palestinian Authority, which manages autonomous territories in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, welcomed Wednesday’s move.
“This long-awaited move serves Palestine’s vigorous effort to achieve justice and accountability as indispensable bases for peace,” the Palestinian Foreign Ministry said.
The Palestinians chose June 2014 as the start of the investigation that coincided with the run-up to the devastating Israeli war in Gaza that summer.
The UN estimates that more than 2,200 Palestinians, including nearly 1,500 civilians, were killed by Israeli fire in the fighting. At least 67 soldiers and six civilians were killed on the Israeli side, according to Israeli figures.
Israel has argued that it was waging a self-defense war against non-stop rocket fire on its cities. It blames Gaza’s Islamist militant Hamas rulers for the high number of civilian casualties, as the group launched attacks from residential areas and elicited Israeli retaliation.
Bensouda has also said her probe would investigate the actions of Hamas, which indiscriminately fired rockets at Israel during the 2014 war.
In Gaza, Hamas nevertheless welcomed the opening of the investigation and called on Bensouda to “resist any pressure” that could disrupt the process.
“This is a step forward to implement justice, punish the occupation and do justice to the Palestinian people,” Hamas spokesman Hazem Qassem told the Associated Press. He said he was confident that the missile attacks on Israeli cities were legitimate under international law.
The ICC is intended to be a court of last resort when a country’s own legal systems are unable or unwilling to investigate and prosecute war crimes.
Israel does not recognize its authority and says it has a world-class independent legal system. But the Palestinians and human rights groups say Israel is incapable of self-investigation and has a history of laundering military crimes.
After the war, the army opened dozens of investigations into the behavior of troops. While there were only a handful of convictions based on minor charges, that could be enough in court, which dropped a similar case against British forces in Iraq last year because British authorities had investigated.
Referring to the Israeli legal system, Bensouda said the investigation “will allow for an ongoing assessment of measures being taken at the domestic level in accordance with the principle of complementarity.”
Experts have warned that Israel could have a harder time defending its settlement policies in East Jerusalem and the West Bank.
Settlements are generally considered illegal on the basis of the Geneva Convention principle that an occupying force is prohibited from transferring its population to areas conquered in war. Population transfers are listed as a war crime in the ICC’s founding treaty, the Rome Statute.
Israel annexed East Jerusalem after the 1967 war in the Middle East and regards the West Bank as a disputed territory. But his views are not internationally recognized, and most of the world regards both areas as occupied territories.
Today, about 700,000 settlers live in the two areas, which the Palestinians, along with Gaza, claim as a future state. Israel says the fate of these areas must be resolved during the negotiations, and that the involvement of the ICC is pushing Palestinians away from the negotiating table.
Bensouda said the priorities in the investigation will be determined “in due course” based on constraints, including the coronavirus pandemic, limited resources and the existing heavy workload of prosecutors.
While Wednesday’s decision poses no immediate threat to Israel, the court has the power to quietly issue arrest warrants for those suspected of crimes.
Netanyahu was Prime Minister during the 2014 Gaza War and was a strong supporter of the settlements. His Defense Secretary, Benny Gantz, was Israel’s military commander during the war. Israeli media has said Israel is in contact with allies who are members of the ICC to receive warnings about possible arrest warrants against its citizens.
In his statement, Netanyahu said Israel was wrongly selected. He accused the court of “turning a blind eye to Iran, Syria and the other dictatorships that commit real war crimes.”
US State Department spokesman Ned Price said: “We strongly oppose and are disappointed with the ICC prosecutor’s announcement of an investigation into the Palestinian situation.”
“We will continue to maintain our strong commitment to Israel and its security, including by opposing actions aimed at unfairly attacking Israel,” Price told reporters in Washington.
International human rights organizations hailed the decision as a step towards justice for Israeli and Palestinian victims.
“The overcrowded role of the court should not prevent the prosecution from persistent prosecution against someone likely to be involved in such crimes,” said Balkees Jarrah, associate international justice director at Human Rights Watch.
“ICC member states should be ready to fiercely protect the court’s work from political pressure,” she said.
Corder reported from The Hague, the Netherlands. Fares Akram in Gaza City, Gaza Strip contributed.