The International Criminal Court ruled that it had jurisdiction over the occupied Palestinian territories, setting the stage for a trial into whether Israel and the Islamist group, Hamas, committed war crimes during a bloody 2014 war.
The ruling enraged Israel, which never signed the 1998 Rome Statute that set up the ICC, and thrilled Palestinians, who have long sought to hold the Jewish state responsible for violations of international law over its 53-year-old occupation of the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem.
“This is pure anti-Semitism,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a late-night address, after the court made its 2-1 ruling. “The court outrageously claims that when Jews live in our homeland, this is a war crime, and that when democratic Israel defends itself against terrorists who murder our children and rocket our cities — we are committing another war crime.”