Netanyahu calls ICC ruling to investigate Israeli war crimes ‘pure anti-semitism’

Occupied Palestine (QNN)- The Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Saturday angrily rejected an International Criminal Court’s ruling that paves the way for a war crimes probe into the Israeli-occupied Palestinian territories, condemning it as “pure anti-Semitism”.

He also claimed that the court has been established to defend Jews only.

“As prime minister of Israel, I can assure you this: we will fight this perversion of justice with all our might,” Netanyahu said in a statement.

“This is pure anti-Semitism.”

“The court established to prevent atrocities like the Nazi Holocaust against the Jewish people is now targeting the one state of the Jewish people”, he added.

Meanwhile, the Israeli occupation army called the ruling “biased and prejudiced”.

In a statement issued on Saturday, the Israeli army claimed it was defending the security of Israel while adhering fully to international law.

On Friday, the ICC ruled that it has jurisdiction over the situation in the occupied Palestinian territories, paving the way for the tribunal to open a war crimes investigation.

ICC prosecutor Fatou Bensouda had asked the court for its legal opinion on whether its reach extended to areas occupied by the occupation state, after announcing in December 2019 that she wanted to start a full probe.

The ICC said its judges had “decided, by a majority, that the Court’s territorial jurisdiction in the Situation in Palestine… extends to the territories occupied by Israel since 1967, namely Gaza and the West Bank, including east Jerusalem”.

Palestine has asked the court to look into Israeli war crimes during its 2014 war against the Gaza Strip, when the Israelis killed 2147 Palestinians including women and children, and wounded 10870 others, as well as Israel’s construction of settlements in the occupied West Bank and annexed east Jerusalem. Israeli settlements are illegal under international law.