ICC urges Israel to provide information for preliminary Gaza probe

ICC prosecutor Fatou Bensouda has said she might be forced to 'just go with one side of the story' if she does not obtain sufficient data on the probe on summer's Gaza war from Israel and the Palestinians.

UNITED NATIONS // The prosecutor of the International Criminal Court has warned Israel that if it does not provide reliable information for her preliminary probe into possible war crimes in Palestinian territories she may be forced to decide whether to launch a full-scale investigation based on Palestinian allegations.

Fatou Bensouda said on Tuesday that she has yet to receive any information from either side regarding last summer’s Gaza war and urged Israel and the Palestinians to provide information to her.

The Palestinians accepted the court’s jurisdiction in mid-January and officially joined the ICC on April 1 in hopes of prosecuting Israel for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity during the Gaza conflict so they are certain to provide Ms Bensouda with information.

Israel, however, has denounced the Palestinian action as “scandalous”, with prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu warning that it turns the ICC “into part of the problem and not part of the solution”.

The ICC prosecutor said her office is “making attempts” to contact the Israelis and to reach out to the Palestinians.

“If I don’t have the information that I’m requesting,” she said, “I will be forced to find it from elsewhere, or I may perhaps be forced to just go with just one side of the story. That is why I think it’s in the best interest of both sides to provide my office with information.”

Ms Bensouda opened a preliminary examination in mid-January after the Palestinians accepted the court’s jurisdiction dating back to just before last year’s Gaza war in which more than 2,200 Palestinians, including hundreds of civilians, were killed. In Israel, 67 soldiers and six civilians were killed.

She stressed repeatedly that a preliminary examination is not an investigation, calling it “a quiet process” to collect information from reliable sources and both sides of the conflict.

Ms Bensouda said the prosecutor’s office will then analyse the information.

Once the analysis is made the prosecutor has three options – to open an investigation, not to open an investigation, or to seek additional information.

“It’s really difficult to say this is going to take two months or three months, or one year or 10 years,” Ms Bensouda said, noting that in some instances like Libya the preliminary examination has been very short while in Afghanistan the preliminary probe has already taken 10 years.

Ms Bensouda said prosecutors will be looking at the Gaza conflict but also at other issues – potentially Israel’s settlement construction on occupied Palestinian lands and alleged war crimes by Hamas, which controls Gaza, including its firing of thousands of rockets at Israeli residential areas from crowded neighbourhoods.

* Associated Press