The Palestinian Authority held a low-key ceremony marking Palestine's official membership to the international body. The International Criminal Court has already launched a preliminary probe into possible war crimes on Palestinian territory by Israeli officials and on Israeli territory by Palestinian officials during the conflict in Gaza last year.
Israel is not a member of the ICC, but the country's military and civilian leaders could now face charges if they are believed to have committed crimes on Palestinian territory.
The court's chief prosecutor, Fatou Bensouda, opened a preliminary investigation in mid-January after the Palestinians formally accepted the court's jurisdiction dating back to just before last year's Gaza conflict.
Palestinian Foreign Minister Riyad Malki said his government plans to cooperate with the ICC investigation and give up officials who the ICC may summon for questioning. Palestinian officials have also said that they will give the ICC some time to investigate their complaint of war crimes but will use their new membership to make an official referral to the court to investigate their complaints if they feel the preliminary probe is heading no where.
Riyad al-Maliki also said his government would have no hesitation in handing over any Palestinian suspects, including himself or other senior government officials, if the ICC asked it to do so.
"We have to give (the prosecutor) the benefit of the doubt, ample time to do that preliminary investigation," he said. "If we feel that it ... is not going to lead to any official investigation or will take more than expected in terms of time, we will utilize our advantage of issuing a referral."
After Palestine signed the Rome Statute, Israel froze tax revenue transfer payments as retaliation and the US government has threatened to cut off aid to the Palestinian government if they use the international court to go after Israel.
The ICC is a court of last resort, handling the most serious crimes when local authorities are unable or unwilling to deal with them.
Israel opposes Palestinian membership in the court, a distant successor of the Nuremberg trials of Nazi war criminals after World War Two, and lobbied unsuccessfully for its western allies to cut funding.
http://www.haaretz.com/...
There are also reports that Israel has agreed to release frozen tax funds to the Palestinian Authority on condition they don't refer a formal complaint against Israel to the ICC.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu decided to renew the transfer of the tax revenues, which he froze in January, on the advice of defense establishment officials who warned of the possible collapse of the PA.
Behind the scenes, however, according to sources in Jerusalem, the transfer of the funds was conditioned on the Palestinians maintaining their security coordination with Israel and, as aforementioned, refraining from filing claims against Israel at the court in The Hague.
http://www.ynetnews.com/...
As of March 31st, 135 countries officially recognize the state of Palestine based on the 1967 borders.