The International Criminal Court has added the multiple IDF demolitions of the Palestinian herding village of Khirbat Humsa in the Jordan Valley to its file of alleged Israeli war crimes.
It did so after the Israeli left-wing NGO Combatants for Peace sent the court information on the demolitions, which had taken place in the small hamlet of tents and shacks.
The Office of the ICC Chief Prosecutor Karim Khan responded to Combatants for Peace last Wednesday.
“The information will be added to our collection of information and transmitted to relevant staff members for further review,” Khan’s office said.
The former ICC chief prosecutor Fatou Bensouda had opened a war crimes probe into Israeli actions in Gaza, the West Bank and east Jerusalem from June 13, 2014 and onwards. Her replacement, Khan, is now tasked with the probe that includes IDF demolitions of Palestinian homes, including in Khirbat Humsa.
Combatants for Peace said that the “way to halt the investigation at The Hague [ICC] has never been easier – halt the Khirbat Humsa demolitions.”
The IDF has argued that the tents and shacks of Khirbat Humsa are illegal and exist in an IDF firing zone. It has taken action multiple times in the past years to remove the structures over the objections of the international community, including the European Union, whose local diplomats have visited the site.
The attorney for Combatants for Peace Eitay Mack explained to the court that the residents of Khirbat Humsa had lived in that area since before the Six Day War.
Mack provided the ICC with aerial photographs that showed the presence of the Palestinians in the area from 1980 to 2002. The Palestinians left the area briefly during the Second Intifada but returned, Mack explained.
Settler presence in the firing zone area has not been treated in the same way, wrote Mack.
The firing zone area was adjusted to take into account the boundaries of the Hemdat settlement, he wrote.