Bensouda said however in a statement that it had "made important progress".Maliki insisted there was "insurmountable" evidence of crimes, adding those "responsible ... must be held accountable for their actions without further delay".The meeting at the ICC comes after more than 60 Palestinians protesting the US decision to move its embassy from Tel Aviv to the disputed city of Jerusalem were killed by Israeli fire last week.Maliki said the Palestinian move was "due to the intensification of the rate and the severity of the crimes against our people", including the targeting of "unarmed protestors in the Gaza Strip".The Palestinian referral highlighted the issue of settlements, which the delegation termed in a statement "the single most dangerous threat to Palestinian lives and livelihoods". "Israel maintains, expands and protects the settlement regime by committing war crimes, crimes against humanity and the crime of apartheid against the Palestinian people," the statement added.Amid much controversy, the Palestinian Authority joined the ICC in January 2015 signing up to the Rome Statute, which underpins the world's only permanent war crimes court.- 'Violence must stop' -Israel is not a member of the ICC however, and the Israeli foreign ministry on Tuesday said it "takes a severe view" of the referral, which it called "a cynical step without legal validity". "But she highlighted it would mean she will not have to ask for the judges' permission if she decides to investigate what would be the most complex and high-profile conflict the tribunal has ever probed.Rights groups urged Bensouda to take up the challenge and move to the next step. "The recent killings in Gaza only underscore the importance of the ICC prosecutor acting to address the pervasive climate of impunity in Palestine," said Richard Dicker, director of the International Justice Program at Human Rights Watch.Bensouda vowed last week that she was watching the unrest in Gaza closely and would "take any action warranted" to prosecute crimes. "The violence must stop," she told AFP.

Source: Egypt Today May 22, 2018 22:07 UTC