United Nations - SANA
Michael Link, the United Nations special rapporteur on human rights in the occupied Palestinian territories, affirmed today that the ICC ruling on its jurisdiction in relation to serious crimes committed in the Occupied Palestinian Territory "is an important step forward in the pursuit of justice and accountability."
"This decision is a major step towards ending impunity during the 53-year-old occupation of the West Bank, including East Jerusalem and Gaza," Link said.
According to a press release issued by the United Nations news site, he criticized the “repeated failure of the main political bodies of the United Nations to implement a set of important decisions regarding the Israeli occupation,” noting that “this ruling opens the door to a final investigation into credible allegations of crimes committed under the Rome Statute and may reach To the trial stage at the International Criminal Court ”.
He added, "The commission of grave crimes that the Prosecutor of the Court can investigate include the actions of / Israel / during the 2014 war on Gaza and the killing and wounding of thousands of unarmed protesters during the Great March of Return in 2018-2019 and the Israeli settlements in East Jerusalem and the West Bank." Link urged the international community to Support the ICC process.
On the fifth of this month, the judges of the International Criminal Court issued a decision stating that the court has jurisdiction over the Palestinian territories occupied in 1967, on the grounds that Palestine is a party to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court.
In December 2019, the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, Fatou Bensouda, announced that she wanted to open a full investigation into possible war crimes in the Palestinian territories and asked the court's judges to confirm that the court's jurisdiction includes the Palestinian territories occupied in 1967, namely the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip.