Calling it a "historic step" toward justice, the Palestinian foreign minister asked the International Criminal Court today to open an "immediate investigation" into alleged Israeli crimes committed against the Palestinian people.
The development was sure to worsen the already troubled relations between the internationally backed Palestinian Authority and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government. Peace talks have been frozen for over four years, and contacts between the two sides are minimal.
Speaking to reporters at the ICC in The Hague, Netherlands, Palestinian Foreign Minister Riad Malki said he submitted the "referral" to the court during a meeting with the ICC's chief prosecutor, Fatou Bensouda.
The referral sought an investigation into Israeli policies in the West Bank, east Jerusalem and Gaza Strip since the state of Palestine accepted the ICC's jurisdiction in 2014, he said.
This includes Israeli settlement policies in the West Bank and east Jerusalem, as well as the recent round of bloodshed in the Gaza Strip, where Israeli fire killed over 100 Palestinians during mass protests along the Gaza border, Malki added.
"There is a culture of impunity in Israel for crimes against Palestinians," Malki said. "This referral is Palestine's test to the international mechanism of accountability and respect for international law."
Richard Dicker, Director of the International Justice Program at Human Rights Watch, said Bensouda, the chief ICC prosecutor, should now "take steps to open a formal probe aimed at holding perpetrators of serious crimes to account and ensuring impartial and comprehensive justice consistent with the court's statute."
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