The Palestinian Center for Human Rights (PCHR) in Gaza welcomed the decision by the International Criminal Court (ICC) to launch an investigation into alleged Israeli crimes in the Palestinian territories.
"This is a remarkable and historic decision and we have waited for a long time" said Raji Al-Sorani, the head of PCHR.
He added that it was time to turn to international justice after they had exhausted all procedures with the Israeli courts and after they were failed and did not obtain dignity or justice from the Israeli judicial system.
The ICC prosecutor Fatou Bensouda said in a statement on Wednesday the investigation will look into "crimes within the jurisdiction of the court that are alleged to have been committed" since June 13, 2014.
She said the investigation will be conducted "independently, impartially and objectively, without fear or favor."
The decision turns the court's focus toward two key Israeli policies of recent years: its repeated military operations against Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip, highlighted by a devastating 2014 war, and its expansion of Jewish settlements in east Jerusalem and the occupied West Bank.
The Ayyad family was one of the Palestinian families that lost a number of their members during the Israeli war on the Gaza Strip in 2014.
"What happened was a war of extermination, because it was the indiscriminate bombing of the elderly, the children, the women and everyone else" Rafiq Ayyad, one of the survivors of the bombing said.
Ayyad said that during the indiscriminate tank shelling targeting the Shajaiya neighborhood, which is one of the most densely populated areas in the Gaza Strip, two shells fell directly in the midst of a group from the Ayyad family during their escape, killing 11 people, including 4 children and four women. More than 7 members of the same family were injured.
While Wednesday's decision does not pose any immediate threat to Israel, the court has the authority to quietly issue arrest warrants for people suspected of crimes.
In the fighting in 2014, over 2,200 Palestinians, including nearly 1,500 civilians, were killed by Israeli fire, according to U.N. estimates. At least 67 soldiers and six civilians were killed on the Israeli side, according to Israeli figures.
Israel has argued that it waged a war of self-defense against nonstop rocket fire against its cities. It blames Gaza’s Islamic militant Hamas rulers for the high civilian death toll because the group launched attacks from residential areas, drawing Israeli retaliation.
Bensouda has also said her probe would look into the actions of Hamas, which fired rockets indiscriminately into Israel during the 2014 war.
Associated Press
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