ICC Prosecutor Opens Probe Into war Crimes Against Palestinians

Israel condemned as "scandalous" the International Criminal Court's decision Friday to launch a preliminary probe into possible war crimes committed by Israeli forces against Palestinians.

The Palestinians, in contrast, said nothing "can now stop this action" from being widened into a full-scale investigation as they have requested.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he rejected the ICC decision, which he called "scandalous."

He noted in a statement that since Palestine was not a state, the ICC had no jurisdiction over it, according to the court's own rules.

The probe is "absurd" since "the Palestinian Authority cooperates with Hamas, a terror group that commits war crimes, in contrast to Israel that fights terror while maintaining international law, and has an independent justice system," the premier said.

Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman added that the sole purpose of the preliminary examination was to "try to harm Israel's right to defend itself from terror."

In a statement he said the decision was "solely motivated by political anti-Israel considerations," adding that he would recommend against cooperating with the probe.

Palestinian foreign minister Riyad al-Malki welcomed the move.

"Everything is going according to plan; no state and nobody can now stop this action we requested," he told AFP. "In the end, a full investigation will follow the preliminary one."

Lieberman accused the court of double standards for not examining the mass killings in Syria or other conflict zones, investigating instead "the most moral army in the world."

He also said he would act to "dismantle this court, a body that represents hypocrisy and gives terror a tailwind."

The Palestinians formally joined the ICC earlier this month, allowing it to lodge war crimes and crimes against humanity complaints against Israel as of April.

At the same time, the Palestinians also recognized the ICC's jurisdiction retroactively, to cover last summer's Israel-Hamas war in Gaza that killed nearly 2,200 Palestinians and 73 Israelis.