World
ICC prosecutor ‘monitoring’ situation in Palestine
The International Criminal Court’s prosecutor is “continuously monitoring” the Palestinian situation, his office said Wednesday, after Israel carried out a large-scale operation in the West Bank city of Jenin.
The Hague-based war crimes tribunal opened a formal investigation in 2021 into the Israeli-occupied Palestinian territories, including alleged crimes by Israeli forces and by Hamas and Palestinian armed groups.
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Israel, which is not a member of the ICC, has refused to cooperate with the probe or recognize its jurisdiction.
“The Office of the Prosecutor (OTP) is continually monitoring the situation and developments in Palestine inasmuch as they are relevant to OTP’s ongoing investigations,” ICC prosecutor Karim Khan’s office told AFP when asked for a reaction to events in Jenin.
The prosecutor’s office gave no further comment or update on the ICC’s investigation, which covers possible crimes going back to the 2014 war in Gaza.
The probe, backed by the Palestinian Authority, has enraged Israel.
Palestinian groups have meanwhile urged the ICC to speed up its investigation, which is competing for resources against the underfunded court’s probes into Ukraine and other war zones.
Israel’s army on Wednesday declared the end of its operation in the occupied West Bank that killed 12 Palestinians and one Israeli soldier over the previous two days.
The raid, involving hundreds of forces, drone strikes and armored bulldozers, targeted the northern West Bank city of Jenin, a center for multiple armed Palestinian groups.
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