The Palestinian resistance movement Hamas has welcomed a decision by the International Criminal Court (ICC) to launch an investigation into Israel’s war crimes against Palestinians.
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Fawzi Barhoum, a spokesman for Hamas, on Saturday expressed the group’s appreciation for the move.
“What is needed now is to quickly take practical steps in this direction,” he said in a statement, adding, “We are ready to provide (the court) with thousands of reports and documents that confirm the Zionist enemy has committed horrible crimes against Gaza and against our people.”
In a statement on Friday, the ICC prosecutor, Fatou Bensouda, said she would conduct the examination in “full independence and impartiality.”
During the latest Israeli war on Gaza, which ended in August 2014 under an Egypt-brokered truce, more than 2,140 Palestinians were killed and over 11,100 others were wounded.
The Palestinians also want the ICC to investigate Israel’s illegal construction activities in the occupied Palestinian territories.
More than half a million Israelis live in over 120 illegal settlements built since Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian territories of the West Bank including East al-Quds (Jerusalem) in 1967.
The Hague-based ICC’s decision to start the probe came after Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, requested ICC membership. The request saw strong opposition from the Israeli regime and its staunch supporter the United States.
Israel denounced the ICC decision as hypocrisy while the US State Department said it is a “tragic irony” that Israel “is now being scrutinized by the ICC.”
Earlier on Saturday, Palestinian Authority’s Foreign Minister Riad al-Malki hailed the ICC move as “historic,” noting that Palestinians would provide the court with “whatever information, documents and testimonies it needs to prove that there were crimes committed against the Palestinian people.”
