Photo Credit: Hildenbrand / MSC
International Criminal Court Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda, Feb. 14 2016

The International Criminal Court at The Hague on Wednesday formally opened its investigation into alleged war crimes perpetrated in the Palestinian Authority-controlled sections of Judea and Samaria, post-1967 Jerusalem and Gaza during the 2014 summer war launched by Gaza’s ruling Hamas terrorist organization against the State of Israel, Chief ICC Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda announced.

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Bensouda said in a statement: “I confirm the initiation by the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court of an investigation respecting the Situation in Palestine.

“The investigation will cover crimes within the jurisdiction of the Court that are alleged to have been committed in the Situation since 13 June 2014, the date to which reference is made in the Referral of the Situation to my Office.”

On 12 June 2014, Hamas terrorists abducted and then murdered three Israeli teenage yeshiva boys, launching the war against Israel.

Oddly, Bensouda deliberately chose to initiate her investigation 24 hours after the vicious, blood-thirsty crime that began the war whose “crimes against humanity” she is investigating, clearly believing they were perpetrated by Israel against the Palestinian Authority Arabs.

Israel Rejects Jurisdiction, ICC Probe
The State of Israel is not a party to the Rome Statute, nor a member of the Court and thus rejects its jurisdiction in this probe. The United States, a close ally and one also outside the jurisdiction of the Court, supports Israel’s position.

“The decision of the International Court to open an investigation against Israel today for war crimes is absurd,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in response to the ICC Prosecutor’s announcement. “It’s undiluted antisemitism and the height of hypocrisy.

“Without any jurisdiction, it decided that our brave soldiers, who take every precaution to avoid civilian casualties against the worst terrorists in the world who deliberately target civilians, it’s our soldiers who are war criminals.

“They said that when we build a house in our eternal capital of Jerusalem, it’s been our capital for 3,000 years, that too is a war crime.

“This court, that was established to prevent the repetition of the Nazi horrific crimes committed against the Jewish people, is now turning its guns against the one and only state of the Jewish people. It’s targeting Israel, the only democracy in the Middle East. But of course it turns a blind eye to Iran, Syria and the other dictatorships that are committing real war crimes left and right.

“We will never stop fighting this injustice,” Netanyahu said. “We will speak the truth in every forum, in every country, on every stage until this outrageous decision is reversed and becomes null and void.”

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Hana Levi Julian is a Middle East news analyst with a degree in Mass Communication and Journalism from Southern Connecticut State University. A past columnist with The Jewish Press and senior editor at Arutz 7, Ms. Julian has written for Babble.com, Chabad.org and other media outlets, in addition to her years working in broadcast journalism.