Palestine urges immediate ICC probe into crimes by Israeli regime, settlers

The Palestinian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates has called on the International Criminal Court (ICC) to launch an immediate investigation into the crimes of the Tel Aviv regime and extremist Jewish settlers.

News ID: 445460

Date: 18 June 2019 - 15:43

RNA - The ministry, in a statement released on Monday, condemned the settlers' assault on the town of Kafr Malik, located 17 kilometers northeast of the occupied central West Bank city of Ramallah, which resulted in the damage of a number of private Palestinian vehicles and racist graffiti being spray-painted on the walls of a local mosque.

“The Israeli regime’s pride in settlement expansion and land grabs reached a blatant provocation in a ceremony attended by [Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu and [US Ambassador to Israel David] Friedman to launch a new settlement in the occupied Golan Heights named after US President Donald Trump,” the statement read.

It added, “The rise in Israeli forces’ and settlers’ expropriation of occupied Palestinian territories and their reckless disregard for international law and resolutions constitute a flagrant challenge to international peace, and the so-called advocates of human rights that claim peace can be achieved through [the so-called] two-state solution.”

The Palestinian foreign ministry finally called on local, regional and international human rights organizations to quickly document these crimes in order to submit them to the ICC, urging them to speed up the opening of an official investigation into these crimes in order to hold Israel accountable for war crimes.

Extremist Jewish settlers stormed Kafr Malik late on Sunday, slashing the tires of four Palestinian vehicles and spray-painting racist anti-Palestinian slogans on the walls of a mosque there.

On Monday morning, Israeli military forces stormed the Palestinian neighborhood of al-Isawiyah in East Jerusalem al-Quds, uprooting tens of trees under the pretext of “security measures.”

Muhammad Abu al-Hummus, a member of a local follow-up committee, said Israeli forces raided the southwestern flank of the area, and took out tens of trees, claiming they were “obstructing the work of surveillance cameras” installed in the region.

Israeli settlers uprooted and chopped down 30 olive trees near the town of Bani Na'im, located 8 kilometers east of al-Khalil, on Sunday.

Rateb Jabour, a local activist, said the tress belonged to Palestinian farmers, and they had been planted there some 30 years ago.

About 600,000 Israelis live in over 230 illegal settlements built since the 1967 Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories of the West Bank and East Jerusalem al-Quds.

The UN Security Council has condemned Israel’s settlement activities in the occupied territories in several resolutions.

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