THE HAGUE - A group of 20 Palestinians have filed a report in the Netherlands asking the Dutch authorities to investigate possible interference by Israeli security services in the International Criminal Court’s (ICC) investigations into war crimes in Gaza. They accuse Israel of “attempts to pressure, defame, and threaten employees of the ICC with the aim of influencing the investigation into Israeli war crimes,” Trouw reports. 

The Palestinians based their complaints largely on reports by the British newspaper The Guardian in May, shortly after ICC prosecutor Karim Khan requested arrest warrants for three Hamas leaders, Israeli President Benjamin Netanyahu, and Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for war crimes and crimes against humanity. 

The Guardian reported that Israeli secret services had intercepted correspondence between ICC staff members and potential witnesses, informants, and NGOs. It also reported that Yossi Cohen, the former head of the Israeli secret service, intimidated and pressured the former ICC prosecutor Fatou Bensouda to stop the investigation. Informants said that the attempts caused “irreparable damage” to the ICC’s investigation. 

The complainants are mainly Palestinians living in the West Bank and two Palestinians with American nationality. They filed their report in the Netherlands because the ICC is located in The Hague and conducts its investigation from here. “They are ordinary people who are all very involved in the ICC investigation,” the Dutch lawyer representing them, Barbara van Straaten, told Trouw. “They consider possible Israeli interference to be a direct violation of their access to justice.” 

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs told Trouw that “the Netherlands is doing its utmost to allow the ICC to do its work safely, undisturbed, and independently.” A spokesperson added that the Ministry spoke to the Israeli ambassador following The Guardian’s report. “We have conveyed our concerns.”