Palestinian Foreign Minister Riad Al-Malki. (AP/Eraldo Peres)
The Palestinians are moving forward with their diplomatic warfare against Israel and are set to submit material to the ICC which allegedly implicates Israel in war crimes.
The Palestinians are slated to submit allegedly incriminating material against Israel to the International Criminal Court (ICC) at The Hague on Thursday, as they continue to charge Israel with war crimes.
“The delivery of this information is considered a fundamental step in the process of ending Israeli impunity and bringing justice to the Palestinian people,” the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) said in a statement.
“The files to be presented to the court refer to war crimes and crimes committed by individuals of the Israeli leadership,” the Palestinians claimed in a statement.
The report, which supposedly took months to write, focuses on the IDF’s activities since June 13, 2014, the day after Hamas kidnapped and murdered three Israeli teenagers. By doing so, the Palestinians are attempting to avoid their own implication in war crimes.
PA Foreign Minister Riad al-Malki along with a team of diplomats and lawyers will formally submit their report to the ICC in Geneva. It was prepared by the Palestinian Higher National Committee which included members of the PLO Executive Committee, ministers and relevant ministerial bodies as well as representatives of all political parties, security forces and professional unions.
Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Emmanuel Nachshon dismissed the Palestinian move as a “crude and cynical attempt to politicize the work of the ICC. We hope the ICC will not fall into the trap.” This step is “nothing more than Palestinian public relations,” he added.
Another Israeli government official denounced the action as “a hostile, aggressive move that is a continuation of a campaign to conduct diplomatic warfare against Israel,” the Jerusalem Post reports.
ICC prosecutor Bensouda. (AP/Robin van Lonkhuijsen)
As part of their diplomatic warfare against Israel, The Palestinian Authority (PA) officially joined the ICC in April in hopes of prosecuting Israel for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity during the Gaza conflict last summer.
Israel has so far refused to cooperate with the ICC, and the ICC prosecutor warned Israel in May that if it does not provide reliable information for her preliminary probe into alleged war crimes committed by Israel during Operation Protective Edge she may be forced to decide whether to launch a full-scale investigation based solely on Palestinian allegations.
Israel, like a number of Western countries including the US, is not a signatory to the Rome Statute, the treaty which governs the ICC and has yet to accept its jurisdiction.
Jerusalem rejects the very validity of the Palestinian right to join the ICC, because it believes that Palestinian statehood rights have not been formerly internationally recognized and should be granted in tandem with a negotiated end to the conflict.
By: United with Israel Staff
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