In one of her most dramatic interviews to date, International Criminal Court Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda told the Associated Press that Israel must provide her information on alleged 2014 Gaza War crimes or she may be forced to decide whether to launch a full criminal investigation based solely on information likely provided to her by human rights critics of Israel.
In the interview, which broke early Wednesday Israel-time but took place in New York on Tuesday leading up to a major speech by Bensouda to the UN Security Council, the ICC Prosecutor said that neither Israel nor the Palestinians had provided any official information to date.
She said she might be “forced to just go with just one side of the story,” emphasizing she still hoped Israel would cooperate.
The Ministry of Justice told The Jerusalem Post on Wednesday that they were referring all questions on the matter to the Foreign Ministry.
It was unclear how much time Bensouda plans to give Israel.
In particular, it was unclear whether she would wait until after the UN Human Rights Council report on Gaza war crimes allegations related to the deaths of over 2,100 Palestinians (with disputes as to whether 50% or 80% were civilians), due for June 29, to make any major moves – as had been expected.
Her comments on timing were vague, saying she was not sure whether her preliminary examination took take two to three months, one year or ten years.
Bensouda came into the picture officially in January when the Palestinian Authority signed the Rome Statute and her preliminary examination kicked into high gear in April when the PA acceded to the statute as the State of Palestine.
Israel does not recognize Palestine as a state, but Bensouda has made it clear that she will not back off from her recognition of Palestine as a state, and that if Israel wishes to avoid a full criminal investigation, it will need to convince her that its own investigations of war crimes are reasonable.
Former deputy foreign minister Danny Ayalon on Wednesday responded to the ICC prosecutor’s statement by saying “Hold your horses” and that ordering a criminal investigation before she has information from Israel would be “premature.”
He said that Israel is well-known for investigating itself with an “unbiased and independent judicial system” and that there would be “due process by the Israeli authorities.”
Ayalon said that a democracy like Israel, which “has a culture and tradition of investigating itself,” should not be treated the same as “terrorists like Hamas” by the ICC.
He added that he viewed the current ICC prosecutor’s intervention as a “political move” pushed forward by the Palestinians and that the prosecutor should “let Israeli authorities do their job.”
The ICC is a court of last resort and does not get involved in a country’s business unless it views that country as unable or unwilling to properly investigate its own citizens and soldiers.
To date, the IDF has come out with three preliminary reports about the status of its war crimes investigations which included preliminary probes into well over 100 incidents and at least 19 criminal investigations already ordered.
Also, recently a UN Board of Inquiry report came out with a mixed report on IDF strikes of UN facilities and Hamas illegal use of some of those facilities for its weapons.
The report was somewhat less critical of Israel than the UNHRC June 29 report is expected to be, partially due to Israels’ background with UN BOI’s versus the UNHRC – which led to Israel cooperating with the UN BOI, but not with the UNHRC.
Bensouda told the AP that she would also be looking at Israeli settlement construction potential war crimes and potential Hamas war crimes for firing thousands of rockets on Israel.
She said she was seeking a copy of the recent Breaking the Silence report, highly criticized by the Israeli government, to see if it could assist her in her preliminary probe.