The International Criminal Court in The Hague has requested clarification from the Palestinian Authority over recent statements by President Mahmoud Abbas' regarding the termination of all agreements with Israel.
Abbas said the PA was suspending security ties with Israel over its plan to apply sovereignty to large parts of Judea and Samaria and the Jordan Valley. He also said that given the American support for the move, the PA no longer sees itself as bound by "any deal" struck with the two, including the 1993 Oslo Accords on which the Israeli-Palestinian peace talks are based.
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Israeli media reported Wednesday that the three-judge panel that comprises the International Criminal Court's pretrial chamber seeks to understand whether Abbas' remarks truly apply to the Oslo Accords as part of their attempt to rule on whether the ICC has the jurisdiction to open a criminal investigation into alleged Israeli war crimes in the Gaza Strip, West Bank and east Jerusalem.
Ramallah must respond to the ICC's inquiry by June 10.
Israel is not part of the ICC and argues that as such, it has no jurisdiction over the Jewish state. The PA joined it in 2015 with the explicit goal of taking legal action against Israel.
Abbas' drastic response to Israel's sovereignty bid may have put the PA in somewhat of a bind.
"If it renounces the agreement that for the first time granted it autonomy in the areas it claims for its state, and thus hands the keys back to Israel, how can it argue that Palestine is a sovereign state that can transfer jurisdiction to The Hague for a war crimes investigation?" an Israeli official noted.
ICC Chief Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda, who has partially based her opinion of the ICC's authority to launch the probe on the Oslo Accords, will have to respond to the Palestinian's answer by June 14.
The three-judge panel is comprised of Péter Kovács of Hungary, Marc Perrin de Brichambaut of France and Reine Adélaïde Sophie Alapini-Gansou of Benin. Their decision is not strictly timebound, but it is thought likely they will hand down a ruling within approximately 90 days.
According to i24NEWS, the court has invited Israel to contribute a response to any further information Ramallah may provide, but Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his government are wary of seeming to provide legitimacy to the court. In one of his first public pronouncements as newly reinstalled prime minister, Netanyahu described the potential criminal proceedings as a "serious strategic threat."
