The International Criminal Court on Monday rejected Israel’s challenge to the legality of its investigation into war crimes committed in Gaza after Oct. 2023.
In a judgment issued on Monday, judges confirmed an earlier ruling by the pre-trial chamber, finding that there had been no "new situation" requiring the prosecutor to restart the process or issue a fresh notification to Israel.
The appeals chamber ruled that the investigation since Oct. 2023 concerns "the same type of armed conflicts, concerning the same territories, with the same alleged parties to these conflicts" as those already under investigation in the long-running Palestine case.
Israel had argued that the scale of the conflict after Oct. 7 marked a fundamental change, triggering new legal obligations under Article 18 of the Rome Statute.
Judges rejected that claim, concluding that "no substantial change to the parameters of the investigation requiring new notification had occurred."
