Palestine To Join War Crimes Court Despite Objections From U.S., Israel

Palestine is set to formally become a member of the International Criminal Court (I.C.C.) on April 1 amid Israel's earlier move to suspend the transfer of crucial tax revenues to the former.

United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon confirmed this himself. The registrar of the war crimes tribunal said the latter's jurisdiction will date back to June 13, 2014, Reuters reported.

This development will allow the court's prosecutor to conduct a probe on the 50-day war between Israel and Hamas militants in the Gaza Strip, which occurred in July and August last year. The war claimed the lives of over 2,100 Palestinians, 67 Israeli soldiers, and six civilians in Israel.

The Hague-based court can exercise jurisdiction over war crimes and crimes against humanity such as genocide committed by anyone on Palestinian territory.

Israel, which collects tax for the Palestinian Authority (P.A.), is not an I.C.C. member like the United States, but its citizens could be tried if charged with committing war crimes on Palestinian land.

The U.S., while criticizing Israel for halting the transfer of tax revenues -- the lifeline of the P.A.'s operations -- also opposed Palestine's court membership, saying it is not a sovereign state and is therefore unqualified to be part of the I.C.C.

"It doesn't qualify to join the I.C.C.," State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki told reporters in a briefing.

However, the only apparent way to challenge the eligibility of Palestinians would be in court.

"The most likely challenge would be if an Israeli national ever came before the court," Reuters quoted Dov Jacobs, a law professor at Leiden University in the Netherlands, as saying. "A defense lawyer could try to challenge the case's legality by arguing to judges that Palestine was not a state."

In a related development, France warned the Palestinians earlier this week against intensifying a diplomatic conflict with Israel.

President Mahmoud Abbas said he is set to resubmit to the U.N. Security Council a resolution calling for the creation of a Palestinian state and for an Israeli withdrawal from the occupied West Bank.

The U.S. helped quash the resolution in a Security Council vote on Dec. 30, while France supported it with some reservations.

Last year, Sweden officially recognized the state of Palestine, becoming the first European Union member state in Western Europe to do so.