JERUSALEM – The International Criminal Court ruled on Friday that it has jurisdiction over the territories occupied by Israel in 1967, despite Israel’s insistence to the contrary, paving the way for an investigation into the allegations of Israeli and Palestinian war crimes in the region.
The ICC’s decision in The Hague came six years after the office of the chief prosecutor of the court, Fatou Bensouda, started a preliminary investigation of Israeli actions in the territories, including during the devastating 50-day war in Gaza in 2014.
The decision that set the precedent, taken more than a year after Bensouda asked the court to confirm his jurisdiction in the area, was hailed by Palestinian leaders and human rights organizations as a step towards justice for the victims. It was criticized by Israel as a contentious political movement with no valid legal basis.
“Today the court has proved once again that it is a political body and not a judicial institution,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a statement. “The court ignores real war crimes and instead pursues the state of Israel, a state with a firm democratic regime, which sanctifies the rule of law and is not a member of the court.”
He later issued a more bellicose video statement accusing the International Criminal Court of “pure anti-Semitism”, while “refusing to investigate brutal dictatorships like Iran and Syria, which commit horrific atrocities almost daily”.
“We are going to fight this perversion of justice with all our strength,” he concluded.
The State Department expressed “serious concerns” about the decision in a statement by a spokesman, Ned Price. “The United States has always taken the position that the court’s jurisdiction should be reserved for countries that consent to this, or that are referred by the UN Security Council,” he said.
Although Israel is not a member of the court, the Palestinians joined in 2015 and called for the ICC’s inquiry.
Giving Israel a severe diplomatic blow, the court ruled that for its purposes, Palestine qualified as the state in the territory where the events in question took place and defined territorial jurisdiction as extending to the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem. The decision was not unanimous, with one of the three judges, Péter Kovács, presenting a divergent opinion, contesting the thesis that the court is competent in this case.
Prime Minister of the Palestinian Authority, Muhammad Shtayyeh, praised the Hague decision as a victory for justice and reparation for victims of Israeli war crimes. “The resolution is a message to perpetrators of crimes, that their crimes will not be subject to a statute of limitations and that they will not go unpunished,” he said.
Now that the court has determined that it has jurisdiction, Ms. Bensouda, the chief prosecutor, must decide whether to proceed with an investigation or leave the decision to her successor. His term ends in June.
In the past, she cited a “reasonable basis for believing” that war crimes were committed, pointing to what she described as Israel’s disproportionate use of force in the 2014 war in Gaza and its continued settlement activity in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. . Also under scrutiny is Israel’s deadly response to Palestinian protests in 2018 along the border fence in Gaza.
Palestinian Foreign Minister Riyad al-Malki said the decision “opens the door to seeking criminal accountability for the most egregious crimes under the court’s mandate, which were and continue to be committed against the Palestinian people.”
But the investigation can also cover alleged crimes committed by the Palestinian side, including that authorities in the West Bank have practiced torture of opponents and supported attacks against Israeli citizens, according to Amnesty International.
The chief prosecutor also cited possible war crimes committed by Hamas, an Islamic militant group that controls Gaza, and other armed groups there, for indiscriminately firing thousands of rockets at Israeli civilian areas and for using Palestinian civilians as human shields.
Balkees Jarrah, Human Rights Watch’s associate international justice director, said the court’s decision “finally offers victims of serious crimes some real hope of justice after half a century of impunity.” She added: “It is high time that Israeli and Palestinian perpetrators of the most serious abuses – be it war crimes committed during hostilities or the expansion of illegal settlements – face justice.”
Filing a lawsuit against Israel at the International Criminal Court has long been considered a risky move by the Palestinians that would enrage Israel and alienate the United States.
President Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian Authority signed the Rome Statute, the treaty that created and governs the court, in December 2014, under strong objections from Israel and the United States. It was part of a strategy to seek statehood in the international arena after another failed round of US-mediated negotiations with Israel.
Israel originally supported the establishment of the international tribunal in 2002, but has not ratified the Rome Statute, in part for fear of ending up on trial over the issue of settlements.
As a non-member, he cannot appeal Friday’s decision. But Israel’s attorney general has argued all along that only a sovereign state can delegate authority to the ICC, and that the areas in question were not a sovereign Palestinian state.
Israel had been preparing for the decision for months and, although it finally arrived on Friday night, when Israel is generally closed for Saturday, outraged officials quickly condemned the decision.
The Foreign Ministry said the court was engaging in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and driving the parties further apart shortly after the Palestinian Authority resumed security cooperation with Israel. The Ministry of Justice considered the decision harmful and superfluous.
Israel has a difficult relationship with United Nations investigators. In 2008, he denied entry to Prof. Richard A. Falk, special rapporteur for the United Nations Human Rights Council for the Palestinian territories, considering his hostile positions and saying he was not welcome. Professor Falk said he was not hostile to Israel, but critical of its occupation policy.
In 2009, a United Nations panel that investigated Israel’s invasion of Gaza that year claimed that Israel intentionally killed Palestinian civilians there, but two years later the panel’s leader, Richard Goldstone, a South African lawyer, withdrew that explosive claim.