Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas is seeking written pledges of support from all political factions, including rival Hamas, before making any attempt to press for possible war crimes charges against Israel, senior officials say.
Abbas hesitated in the past because such a step would transform his relations with Israel from tense to openly hostile and could put him on a collision course with the United States.
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas looks on as he meets with members of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) on July 22, 2014, in the West Bank city of Ramallah. (photo credit: AFP/ABBAS MOMANI)
The Palestinian Authority is also worried that if Palestinian officials pursue war crimes charges against Israeli officials in international courts, Israel can pursue them in the same courts for war crimes such as the firing of rockets at civilians and hundreds of suicide bombings and bombing attempts in Israeli towns. Such an Israeli effort would affect not only Hamas or Islamic Jihad, but also Abbas’s own Fatah organization.
But with over 1,400 Palestinians killed in Israel-Hamas fighting in Gaza in the past 24 days, according to officials at Gaza’s Hamas-run Health Ministry, Abbas is under growing domestic pressure to turn to the International Criminal Court to try to make a case against Israel.
Israeli officials have said Israel is acting in self-defense by targeting Hamas’s military arsenal and rocket-launching sites and have accused Hamas of using Gaza civilians as human shields.
— AP contributed
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