A Senior Palestinian official today threatened to pursue war crimes charges against Israel over new settlements which have sparked international condemnation.
Britain and other nations have been warning Palestinian leaders not to use their new status at the United Nations as a “non-member observer state” to seek to take Israel to the International Criminal Court, a UN body.
However, Palestinian official Nabil Shaath said “by continuing these war crimes of settlement activities”, Israel is “pushing and forcing us to go to the ICC”. The threat came as Israel rejected warnings from the UN, America, Britain and other European nations over its plans to build 3,000 homes in the West Bank
and east Jerusalem.
Its intention to develop an area known as E1 could cut the link between the West Bank and east Jerusalem — the sector of the holy city the Palestinians claim for a future capital — and destroy the peace process, the UN fears.
But Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said Israel would continue to stand
up for its interests “even in the face of international pressure, and there will be no change in the decision taken”.
