ICC paves the way for Israeli war crimes probe in Palestinian territories

The International Criminal Court ruled Friday that it had jurisdiction over the situation in the occupied Palestinian territories, paving the way for the tribunal to open a war crimes investigation.

ICC 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.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu denounced the ICC as a "political body" while the United States said it had "serious concerns" over the decision. The Palestinians called it a "victory for law".

The ICC said in a statement that judges 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 the Netherlands in 2002 to try the world's worst crimes, but Israel is not.

The court added that its decision was not a ruling on Palestinian "statehood", but that as a state party to the court it should be treated in line with a UN General Assembly statement of the "right of the Palestinian people to self-determination".

"The chamber is 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", it said.

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.

But the US has also cited the court's treatment of its ally Israel.

Israel's Netanyahu Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu slammed Friday's decision.

"The tribunal has, once again, proved that it is a political body and not a judicial institution," Netanyahu said in a statement, adding the decision undermined the "right of democracies to defend themselves against terrorism".

Palestinian civil affairs minister Hussein al-Sheikh said on Twitter that the ICC ruling was a "victory for law, justice, liberty and moral values in the world."

The US State Department said Israel should not be bound by the court as it was not a member.

"We have serious concerns about the ICC's attempts to exercise jurisdiction over Israeli personnel. We have always taken the position that the court's jurisdiction should be reserved for countries that consent to it or are referred by the UN Security Council," State Department spokesman Ned Price told reporters.

Human Rights Watch however said the ruling was "pivotal", adding that it was "high time that Israeli and Palestinian perpetrators of the gravest abuses" should face justice.

"The ICC's decision finally offers victims of serious crimes some real hope for justice after a half century of impunity," Balkees Jarrah, associate international justice director at HRW, said in a statement.

Bensouda called for the full investigation following a five-year preliminary probe since the 2014 war in Gaza.

At the time, she said she could open a probe on her own authority but wanted to ask the ICC about the territory it covers because of the "unique and highly contested legal and factual issues attaching to this situation."

ICC prosecutor Bensouda, who steps down in June, has urged the Biden administration to lift the sanctions.

In a separate case, the ICC in September dismissed an appeal against a decision not to probe Israel over a deadly raid on an aid flotilla to Gaza in 2010.