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Palestinians file Israeli war crime suit with ICC: official | ASHARQ AL-AWSAT English Archive 2005 -2017
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Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas during a meeting to sign more than 20 international treaties, including the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, in the West Bank city of Ramallah, on December 31, 2014. (EPA)


Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas during a meeting to sign more than 20 international treaties, including the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, in the West Bank city of Ramallah, on December 31, 2014. (EPA)

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas during a meeting to sign more than 20 international treaties, including the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, in the West Bank city of Ramallah, on December 31, 2014. (EPA)

Tel Aviv, Asharq Al-Awsat—The Palestinians filed a request to the Hague-based International Criminal Court (ICC) to investigate what it believes to be Israeli war crimes committed during the 50-day war in Gaza in July and August 2014, along with its letters of accession to the ICC, a Palestinian official said.

Speaking to Asharq Al-Awsat on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to brief the media, the senior Palestinian official confirmed that the Palestinians will immediately make use of the ICC’s judicial stature.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas signed the accession documents after a bid to pass a UN Security Council resolution demanding an end to the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories by late 2017 failed. Abbas signed the Rome Statute, the ICC’s founding document, at a Ramallah meeting on Wednesday. Signing the Rome Statute is viewed as the first step to full membership of the ICC.

“We want to complain. There’s aggression against us, against our land. The UN Security Council disappointed us,” Abbas said.

The documents also include lawsuits related to illegal Israeli settlement building on Palestinian territory, particularly in eastern Jerusalem, the unnamed Palestinian official told Asharq Al-Awsat.

He stressed that all Palestinian factions support the bid to join the ICC, including Hamas which could find its own members brought to trial before the Hague court for war crimes. “Therefore, there is no reason for concern that this step will deepen the rift among the Palestinians, on the contrary, this is strengthening our unity,” the official added.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has called on the ICC not to accept the Palestinians’ request for membership, saying that they do not rank as a state.

“We expect the ICC to reject the hypocritical request by the Palestinian Authority, which is not a state but an entity linked to a terrorist organization,” he said on Thursday. Israel is not a member of the ICC, and does not recognize its jurisdiction.

“We will take steps in response and we will defend the soldiers of the IDF, the most moral army in the world,” the Israeli prime minister added.

An Israeli soldier shot an unarmed Palestinian man as he approached the Burin intersection south of Nablus in the West Bank on Thursday, Palestinian state Ma’an news agency reported. A day later, Israeli forces opened fire at Palestinians in the Al-Farrahin area east of Khan Yunis in the Gaza Strip, nobody was hurt in the incident.

During the 50-day war that took place this summer, 2,131 Palestinians were killed, including 1,473 civilians, and 71 Israelis were killed, including four civilians, according to the United Nations.