AFP
Channel 13 reported that Israel has 30 days to respond to a letter from the International Criminal Court relating to accusations of war crimes in the Palestinian territories.
The Israeli channel indicated that the letter of the International Court arrived at the end of last week, at a time when the National Security Council began formulating Israel’s response to these accusations, indicating that the brief letter consisting of a page and a half presented the three main areas of investigation, which are the 2014 war between Israel and Hamas, and the settlement policy. The Israeli government, in addition to the 2018 Great March of Return protests, a series of violent demonstrations along the Gaza border with Israel that left dozens of Palestinians dead.
Earlier this month, the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, Fatou Bensouda, announced that it had opened a formal investigation into alleged crimes in the Palestinian territories, in a move that Israel strongly opposes.
Bensouda said there was a “reasonable basis” to believe that crimes were committed by members of the Israel Defense Forces, Israeli authorities, Hamas, and Palestinian armed factions during the 2014 Gaza war.
Also earlier this month, a number of officials told Channel 13 that they are concerned that the ICC may actually begin issuing arrest warrants against former Israeli military officials and officers in the coming months.
According to Israeli media reports, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is at the forefront of these officials, in addition to the Minister of Defense at that time, Moshe Ya’alon, and the current Minister of Defense, Benny Gantz, who was the Chief of Staff of the Army at the time, in addition to a number of army commanders in Country.
Israel is not a member of the International Criminal Court, while the Palestinians joined it in 2015.
The newspaper says that Israel hopes that its debate over jurisdiction will succeed in delaying the case until the outgoing Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, Fatou Bensouda, is replaced in June by a British representative, Karim Khan, whom the state considers as “less hostile” or may cancel Investigation.
The Israeli army had opened dozens of detailed criminal investigations with a number of its members after the 2014 Gaza war and the 2018 border crisis with the Strip, against the background of the killing of a number of Palestinians, in addition to about 500 reviews of what happened.
Source: “The Times or Israel”
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