Five signatory states to the treaty establishing the International Criminal Court (ICC) have requested an investigation into the “situation in the State of Palestine,” the prosecutor said, confirming that crimes committed since the bloody Hamas attack on October 7 are being investigated.
Published on: November 19, 2023 – 00:40
2 minutes
In Israel, 1,200 people have been killed since October 7, most of them civilians, and were massacred on the day of the Hamas attack in a violence and scale unprecedented since Israel’s founding in 1948. More than 240 people were taken hostage. Israel then launched a massive retaliatory offensive against Hamas GazaAccording to the Ministry of Health, 12,000 people were killed in the area controlled by Hamas.
“My office received a referral on the situation in the State of Palestine from the following five States Parties: South Africa, Bangladesh, Bolivia, […] Comoros and Djibouti,” said ICC prosecutor Karim Khan. “Upon receipt of the referral, my office confirms that it is currently investigating the situation,” he added in a statement.
The ICC, founded in 2002 to condemn the worst atrocities around the world, opened an investigation in 2021 into alleged war crimes in the Palestinian territories, including alleged crimes committed by Israeli forces, Hamas and other Palestinian armed groups.
Karim Khan said his mandate applies to alleged crimes committed during the current war. But their teams were unable to enter the Gaza Strip or Israel, which is not a member of the International Criminal Court. Legal experts told AFP that both sides could be accused of war crimes.
A directive to the ICC to “urgently pay attention to the seriousness of the situation”
South Africa said it filed this case while “other countries shared the same concerns” so that the ICC would “pay urgent attention to the seriousness of the current situation.” Pretoria “also encourages other states parties to the Rome Statute to join the referral or submit separate referrals independently,” its foreign ministry press release adds.
A State Party may bring to the attention of the Prosecutor a situation in which one or more crimes appear to have been committed within the jurisdiction of the Court and request the Prosecutor to investigate the situation in order to determine whether a particular person or persons should be charged with the commission of such crimes , recalled the British judge.
“Since the beginning of my mandate in June 2021, I have put together my own team for the first time to advance the investigation into the situation in the State of Palestine,” said the public prosecutor. “The office has collected a significant amount of information,” he also emphasized.
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(With AFP)