(MENAFN- Palestine News Network) Bethlehem/PNN/
Tayseer Khaled, the member of the Executive Committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization, called on the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court Fatou Bensouda, to assume its responsibilities and initiate a judicial investigation into war crimes committed by Israel in the occupied Palestinian territories, especially settlement crimes, in light of the new wave of building plans for more than Five thousand new settlement units in the vicinity of Jerusalem and in settlement blocs and isolated settlements deep in the West Bank,
He stressed that there is no excuse for the International Criminal Court after the new construction wave recently approved by the Planning and Building Council in the Civil Administration of the Occupation Army in a continuous challenge to international law, in an unlimited disregard for the stance of the international community and in an open and overt investment of the normalization agreements with the United Arab Emirates and the kingdom of Bahrain.
He reminded the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court , that the State of Palestine, as observer member of the United Nations General Assembly under Resolution 67/19 of 2012, had accepted on the first of January 2015 the jurisdiction of the court over crimes committed in Palestine and on the second of January deposited the application to join the court with the Secretary-General of the United Nations and that its membership in the court entered into force in April of the same year, and by announcing the end of last year the completion of the preliminary study phase in case Palestine, and its assertion that all the legal conditions for opening an investigation were fulfilled and that it had requested the Pre-Trial Chamber to decide its regional jurisdiction in Palestine, in order to open the way for the rulers of Israel to be held accountable for their criminal acts in the State of Palestine under occupation, as defined by the resolution issued by the United Nations General Assembly No. 67/19 of 2012 and sends them a clear message that they cannot continue their violations of human rights in the occupied Palestinian territories without accountability
Khaled called on the Prosecutor of the Court not to waste more time and to request without delay the Pre-Trial Chamber of the Court to issue a decision, in accordance with Article 19 (3) of the Rome Statute, to decide its territorial jurisdiction in Palestine, especially since the International Criminal Court has the required jurisdiction over the State of Palestine, given that Palestine is a state party to the Rome Statute and based on Palestine's acceptance on January 1, 2015, the jurisdiction that enables and obliges it to consider the large-scale crimes committed by Israel and to send a clear message to the officials of the Planning Council in the Civil Administration of the Occupation Army and to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Benny Gantz, Defense Minister, who are competing, who is more extreme, in confiscating Palestinian lands, expanding settlements and more willing to placate settlers and Jewish terror organizations operating in the West Bank, including Jerusalem, besieging the Palestinians in apartheid enclaves, and pushing them to emigrate without accountability
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