{"id":227199,"date":"2021-02-07T08:24:59","date_gmt":"2021-02-07T08:24:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=227199"},"modified":"2021-02-09T08:12:49","modified_gmt":"2021-02-09T08:12:49","slug":"international-criminal-court-says-it-has-jurisdiction-in-palestinian-territories","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=227199","title":{"rendered":"International Criminal Court says it has jurisdiction in Palestinian territories"},"content":{"rendered":"

Toby Sterling, Stephanie van den Berg — Reuters Feb 5, 2021<\/strong><\/h1>\n

Judges at the International Criminal Court on Friday found the court has jurisdiction over war crimes committed in the Palestinian territories, paving the way for a possible criminal investigation, despite Israeli objections.<\/p>\n

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. The United States objected to the decision.<\/p>\n

ICC Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda said her office was studying the decision and would decide what to do next \u201cguided strictly by its independent and impartial mandate\u201d to prosecute grave war crimes and atrocities when countries are unable or unwilling to do so themselves.<\/p>\n

The ICC judges said their decision was based on the fact that Palestine has been granted membership to the tribunal\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Court\u2019s 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,\u201d they said.<\/p>\n

Bensouda had found in December 2019 that \u201cwar crimes have been or are being committed in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip.\u201d<\/p>\n

She named both the Israeli Defense Forces and armed Palestinian groups such as Hamas as possible perpetrators.<\/p>\n

She said then that she saw no reason not to open an investigation, but asked judges to first rule on whether the situation fell under the court\u2019s jurisdiction.<\/p>\n

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu denounced the decision, saying in a video statement: \u201cWhen the ICC investigates Israel for fake war crimes, this is pure antisemitism.\u201d<\/p>\n

He condemned the court for investigating Israel when it \u201cdefends itself against terrorists\u201d while refusing to investigate what he said were brutal dictatorships in Iran and Syria that committed horrific atrocities almost daily.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe will fight this perversion of justice with all our might,\u201d Netanyahu said in the video, shaking a fist<\/p>\n

Human Rights Watch called the decision \u201cpivotal\u201d and said it \u201cfinally offers victims of serious crimes some real hope for justice after a half century of impunity,\u201d said Balkees Jarrah, associate international justice director.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s high time that Israeli and Palestinian perpetrators of the gravest abuses – whether war crimes committed during hostilities or the expansion of unlawful settlements – face justice.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Palestinian Foreign Ministry said in a statement that it was a \u201chistoric day for the principle of accountability.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sami Abu Zuhri, a Hamas official, described the decision as \u201can important development that contributes in protecting the Palestinian people.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe urge the international court to launch an investigation into Israeli war crimes against the Palestinian people,\u201d said Abu Zuhri, who is currently outside Gaza.<\/p>\n

U.S. State Department spokesman Ned Price wrote on Twitter: \u201cThe United States objects to today\u2019s @IntlCrimCourt decision regarding the Palestinian situation.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe will continue to uphold President Biden\u2019s strong commitment to Israel and its security, including opposing actions that seek to target Israel unfairly,\u201d Price added.<\/p>\n

The Trump administration had vehemently opposed the ICC.<\/p>\n

Jamil Dakwar, director of the American Civil Liberties Union\u2019s Human Rights Program, said U.S. President Joe Biden should do nothing to undermine the ICC\u2019s independence.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s important to remember that the ICC investigation would also target Palestinian perpetrators of war crimes in the context of hostilities between Israel and Palestinian armed groups, especially in the Gaza Strip,\u201d Dakwar said on Twitter.<\/p>\n

Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cWe will fight this perversion of justice with all our might,\u201d Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu said in response. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":39262,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[58,37],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-227199","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-Current_Affairs","category-Israel_Anti-Semitism_Zionism_and_US-UK_allies"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/227199","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/39262"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=227199"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/227199\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":227208,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/227199\/revisions\/227208"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=227199"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=227199"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=227199"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}