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ISRAEL-PALESTINIAN-CONFLICT-ICC-WARCRIMES
ICC rules its ‘territorial jurisdiction’ extends to Palestinian areas
THE HAGUE, Feb 6, 2021 (BSS/AFP) – The International Criminal Court ruled Friday that it had jurisdiction over the situation in the occupied Palestinian territories, paving the way for the tribunal’s prosecutor to open a war crimes investigation.
Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda had asked the court for its legal opinion on whether its reach extended to areas occupied by Israel, after announcing in December 2019 that she wanted to start a full probe.
The ICC said in a statement it had “decided, by majority, that the Court’s territorial jurisdiction in the Situation in Palestine, a State party to the ICC Rome Statute, extends to the territories occupied by Israel since 1967, namely Gaza and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem.”
Palestine is a state party to the court set up in 2002 to try the world’s worst crimes, but Israel is not.
The court added that the decision was “neither adjudicating a border dispute under international law nor prejudging the question of any future borders” but was for the “sole purpose of defining the Court’s territorial jurisdiction.”
Bensouda called for the full investigation following a five-year preliminary probe since the 2014 war in Gaza.
Israel and United States reacted with furious condemnation of the court when the prosecutor made the announcement.
The administration of then-US President Donald Trump slapped sanctions on the prosecutor and another senior ICC official in September.
The United States, which is not a member of the ICC, inflicted the measures on the court after earlier visa bans on Bensouda and others failed to head off the court’s war crimes probe into US military personnel in Afghanistan.
The US has also criticised the court’s treatment of its ally Israel.
ICC prosecutor Bensouda, who steps down in June, has urged the Biden administration to lift the sanctions.
BSS/AFP/MMA/0845HRS