INVESTIGATIONS ONGOING
“We can confirm that we have received a communication as the sender has made that fact public,” the Hague-based ICC’s prosecutors said.
“The Office of the Prosecutor does not comment on such communications,” chief prosecutor Karim Khan’s office said in a statement to AFP.
But prosecutors will look at the information to see if the crimes alleged were within the court’s jurisdiction, and could be linked to its existing probe into the Palestinian situation, it added.
The communication would be “shared with the relevant team that will consider the information as part of the overall situation and in the context of the team’s ongoing investigative and cooperation efforts,” Khan’s office said.
Opening its doors in 2002, the ICC is the world’s only independent court set up to probe the gravest offences including genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity.
It opened an investigation into Israel as well as Hamas and other armed Palestinian groups for possible war crimes in the Palestinian territories in 2021.
Chief prosecutor Khan has said that any suspected war crimes in the ongoing conflict would fall under the ICC’s jurisdiction.
ICC teams have not, however, been able to enter Gaza, or Israel which is not a member of the ICC.
Last week the Palestinian Authority’s foreign minister Riyad al-Maliki met ICC officials, asking Khan for “immediate intervention” in Gaza.
International legal experts have told AFP that they believe both sides in the conflict have committed war crimes.
Source: CNA
