Palestinian rights groups urge ICC to investigate Israel war crimes in Gaza

The three organisations – Al Haq, Al Mezan and the Palestine Human Rights Campaign – asked the ICC to look into Israeli air strikes on densely populated civilian areas in Gaza, the siege of the enclave and the mass forcible displacement of its population.

“These actions amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity, including genocide and incitement to genocide,” they stated in a joint statement.

The ICC announced it had received communication from the groups and would assess the information.

Israel is not a member of court, based in the Hague, and does not recognise its jurisdiction. However, the ICC can investigate nationals of non-member states in some circumstances, including when alleged crimes are  committed in the territories of member states. Occupied Palestine is a member of the ICC.

Last week, families of Israeli victims of Hamas’ surprise attack on 7 October filed papers at the ICC urging the court to look into Hamas crimes.

In a post on Telegram, the Israeli army announced that it has hit more than 15,000 targets in the besieged enclave since the war began in early October.

It added that “6,000 weapons”, including anti-tank missiles, rockets and ammunition, had been located in Gaza.

“In recent days, combined Israeli forces have continued to strike numerous terror targets in the Gaza Strip, including operational command centres, terror and rocket infrastructure, weapons and logistics depots, launch posts, terror tunnels, [and] numerous Hamas terrorists,” it said.

Earlier, the Gaza government’s media office said about 32,000 tonnes of explosives had been dropped on Gaza since the start of the war. It called the destruction “unprecedented”, stressing that more than 50 percent of Gaza’s housing units had been damaged in the bombardment.

Israel has launched relentless air and ground attacks on the Gaza Strip since a cross-border attack by Hamas a month ago.

At least 11,000 Palestinians, including more than 4,500 children and over 3,000 women, have been killed since then. The Israeli death toll, meanwhile, is nearly 1,600, according to official figures.

Besides the large number of casualties and massive displacements, basic supplies are running low for Gaza’s 2.3 million residents due to the Israeli siege.