South Africa joins four other countries to demand war crime investigation against Israel
Called in: the International Criminal Court.
Five countries, including South Africa, have called on the International Criminal Court to investigate whether Israel has committed war crimes in Gaza since October 7.
South Africa, Bangladesh, Bolivia, Comoros and Djibouti submitted the referral to the ICC to investigate whether crimes have been committed in the Palestinian territories as part of Israel’s response to the October 7 Hamas terror attacks.
ICC prosecutor Karim Khan said his office was already conducting an investigation on the situation in the Palestinian territories over possible crimes committed since June 2014 in Gaza and the West Bank. The investigation began in March 2021.
“It is ongoing and extends to the escalation of hostilities and violence since the attacks that took place on 7 October 2023,” Khan said. “In accordance with the Rome Statute, my Office has jurisdiction over crimes committed on the territory of a State Party and with respect to the nationals of States Parties.”
Israel is not a member of the ICC and rejects the court’s jurisdiction. That has not stopped the court from investigating its actions in the occupied Palestinian territories. Fatou Bensouda, then the ICC’s prosecutor, spent five years conducting a “painstaking preliminary examination” and concluded she was “satisfied that war crimes have been or are being committed in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip.” But no arrests were made, and Bensouda left office in 2021.
Isn’t it strange that Israel accepts the decisions of international organisations on the basis of whether it suits that country’s leaders or not?
So the United Nations resolution – a decision of an international organisation – to set up a country called Israel, back in the late 1940s, is welcomed.
But an International Criminal Court verdict – a decision of another international organisation – that Israel has committed war crimes, is rejected and nobody responsible is brought to justice.
This Writer fears that Israeli war criminals whose crimes are taking place during the current conflict will also escape justice, while any Hamas members – leaders or rank-and-file – who are apprehended will suffer whatever Israel’s leaders decide can pass for justice over them.
It will probably take another war – against Israel – to achieve any real justice over its war criminals, and there is no appetite for it because members of the international community fear being labelled “anti-semitic”.
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