"Amid a push by the Palestinian Authority for an expedited investigation into alleged Israeli 'war crimes,' the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) at The Hague indicated that a preliminary examination opened in 2015 'will continue to follow its normal course.'
Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda issued the statement after meeting with PA Foreign Minister Riyad al-Malki, who called for an urgent probe into Israel's policies in the West Bank and Gaza Strip... It is debatable, however, whether the ICC has legal jurisdiction to conduct any such investigation given that Israel is not a party to the Rome Statute, the court's founding charter. For its part, the PA is not a full member of the United Nations, although the General Assembly in 2012 voted to upgrade its status to 'non-member observer state.'...
'The PA has been trying to bring the subject of Israel into the International Criminal Court for a long time,' according to Lt. Col. (res.) Maurice Hirsch, formerly the head of the IDF's Military Prosecution in the West Bank. But, he contended to The Media Line, the Palestinian accusations 'have very little veracity' and are thus unlikely to result in the launch of a comprehensive investigation.
'These [Palestinian] claims tend to be mostly political, based on questionable facts that paint a very one-sided picture. If you're looking at a potential legal battle in the ICC, I think the Palestinians would have much more to fear than the Israelis do,' Hirsch argued in reference to Hamas' reported tactic of using civilians as 'human shields' and the PA's so-called 'pay-for-slay' policy of providing salaries to those who commit terror attacks against Israelis.
'Also, the Palestinian Authority isn't a state and therefore it's questionable whether it should have been able to ascend to the [Rome] convention in the first place.' Still, he concluded, if an investigation were to materialize 'Israel would take it very, very seriously,' especially if senior officials were targeted for prosecution.
Benjamin Duerr, a legal analyst in The Hague and ICC expert, agrees with Hirsch that any investigation, while unlikely, could ultimately have negative repercussions for the Palestinians. 'Since the PA does not have any influence on these decisions, the opening of an investigation could backfire,' he told The Media Line. 'The prosecutor could decide to prosecute Palestinians, too.'..."