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 The chief Palestinian observer at the United Nations, Riyad
Mansour, and U.N. spokesman Farhan Haq confirmed handover of the
diplomatic documents at the world body's headquarters.
"This is a very significant step," Mansour said. "It is an option
that we are seeking in order to seek justice for all the victims
that have been killed by Israel, the occupying power."
The U.N. press office issued a statement saying the Palestinians had
delivered documentation to join 16 international treaties. "The
documents are being reviewed with a view to determining the
appropriate next steps," it said.
While President Barack Obama supports an eventual independent
Palestinian state neighboring Israel, U.S. officials have argued
against unilateral moves like Friday's, warning they could set back
the peace process.
"We are deeply troubled by Palestinian action regarding the ICC," a
senior State Department official said. "It should come as no
surprise that there will be implications for this step, but we
continue to review," the official said, referring to U.S. aid to the
Palestinian Authority.
Washington sends about $400 million in economic support aid to the
Palestinians every year. Under U.S. law, that aid would be cut off
if the Palestinians used membership in the International Criminal
Court to make claims against Israel.
The Hague-based court looks at cases of severe war crimes and crimes
against humanity, such as genocide.
According to the Rome Statute, the Palestinians will become a party
to the court on the first day of the month that follows a 60-day
waiting period after depositing signed and ratified documents of
accession with the United Nations in New York.
The ICC move paves the way for the court to take jurisdiction over
alleged crimes committed in Palestinian lands and investigate the
conduct of both Israeli and Palestinian leaders over more than a
decade of bloody conflict. Neither Israel nor the United States
belongs to the ICC.
Mansour said the Palestinians have also formally requested
retroactive ICC jurisdiction "with regard to the crimes committed
during the last war in Gaza." He was referring to Israel's 50-day
war against Hamas militants in the Gaza Strip this past summer.
More than 2,100 Palestinians, 67 Israeli soldiers and six civilians
in Israel were killed in the July-August war.
Regarding the threat of possible U.S. sanctions for joining the ICC,
Mansour said: "It is really puzzling when you seek justice through a
legal approach to be punished for doing so."
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Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday said President
Mahmoud Abbas' action would expose the Palestinians to prosecution
over support for what he called the terrorist Hamas Islamist group.
He vowed to take steps to rebuff any potential moves against Israel.
"We will take steps in response and defend Israel's soldiers,"
Netanyahu said in a statement.
Silvan Shalom, Israeli minister for infrastructure and regional
cooperation, told Israel's Channel Two TV that the Palestinians'
action violated the Oslo agreements, which could lessen Israel's
willingness to make any future deals.
Netanyahu himself was an opponent of the Oslo peace process,
however, and called the accords deeply flawed.
The other signed treaties the Palestinians delivered to the United
Nations include the U.N. Convention Against Transnational Organized
Crime, the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea, two additional
protocols to the Geneva Conventions and the Convention on Cluster
Munitions.
The Palestinian government signed the Rome Statute on Wednesday, a
day after a bid for independence by 2017 failed at the U.N. Security
Council.
Palestinians seek a state in Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem
- lands Israel captured in the 1967 Middle East War.
Momentum to recognize a Palestinian state has built since Abbas
succeeded in a bid for de facto recognition of Palestinian statehood
at the U.N. General Assembly in 2012, which made Palestinians
eligible to join the ICC.
(Additional reporting by Lesley Wroughton and Patricia Zengerle in
Washington and Dan Williams in Jerusalem; Editing by Bill Trott, Dan
Grebler and Bernard Orr)
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