The International Criminal Court has given the Israeli Occupation and the Palestinians a month to request the postponement of an investigation into alleged war crimes committed in the Palestinian territories, provided that they prove that they are conducting their own investigations.

At the beginning of this month, the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, Fatou Bensouda, opened an investigation into alleged war crimes in the Palestinian territories, in a move rejected by the Israeli Occupation and welcomed by the Palestinians.

According to the rules of the International Criminal Court, based in The Hague, a country can, if it so desires, try to prove that it has opened an investigation into the alleged crimes and thus request the court to assign it to investigate.

This request must be submitted "within a period of one month from the date of receiving the notification" according to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court.

Bensouda previously announced that "there is an acceptable basis" to believe that war crimes were committed by members of the Israeli Occupation Forces, the Israeli Occupation authorities, the Palestinian Hamas movement and other Palestinian factions during the Gaza war in 2014.

Unlike Palestine, the Israeli Occupation is a non-member state of the International Criminal Court, and has strongly opposed any investigation.