ICC team to Visit Israel

At the request of International Criminal Court (ICC) prosecutor Fatou Bensouda, Israel has agreed to host a team from the ICC, which is in the process of assessing whether to probe Palestinian allegations that Israel committed war crimes during the 2014 Gaza war with Hamas.

Fatou Bensouda, chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court

Such a visit is an unprecedented move to show the ICC team how the Israeli judicial system works. An Israeli official is quoted as saying that “we have nothing to hide.” But the Israelis clearly hope that the visit will show the ICC it does not have the "jurisdiction or authority" to investigate the Palestinian allegations.

That hope seems to be based upon the fact that the ICC’s statutes only permit it to investigate such claims if it becomes convinced that the state in question is unable or unwilling to pursue the matter itself.

Thus an Israeli official said: “We would be happy to show the court at The Hague how serious, professional and independent the Israeli legal system is … This is an additional opportunity to make clear that Israel believes there is no room for the intervention of the court at The Hague and that it has neither the authority nor the justification to handle the Palestinians' complaints."