The International Criminal Court (ICC) announced on Thursday that it has formally notified Israel and the Palestinian Authority of its upcoming probe into alleged war crimes on the Palestinian territories.
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The act gives both parties a one-month period to apply for deferring the case, the ICC said; to do so, a party must prove that it is capable of investigating the matter on their own.
According to the Associated Press, the notifications were sent to all signatories of the Rome Statute, the court's founding charter, as well as Israel and Palestinians, on March 9, with Channel 13 News confirming that Jerusalem received it and had yet to respond.
Under Article 16 of the Statute, an ICC investigation or prosecution can be deferred for up to a year on a request from the UN Security Council, which must first approve the appropriate resolution.
According to the AP report, Israel could submit an overview of its own actions taken to probe the possible violations during Operation Protective Edge in 2014 in Gaza, which followed the murder of three Israeli teenagers by Hamas.
The murder itself does not fall under the ICC jurisdiction due when the PA joined the court.
Should the court accept the outline, Israel could potentially conduct the investigation on its own, with occasional supervision by the ICC.
The report comes as President Reuven Rivlin and IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen Aviv Kochavi are touring Europe, seeking to drum up support for Israel and its rejection of the ICC probe.
This article was first published by i24NEWS.
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