The Palestinian Authority is increasing the pressure on the International Criminal Court in The Hague to set an official date for documents regarding Israel’s alleged war crimes in last summer’s Gaza war to be submitted.

The PA accepted the ICC’s jurisdiction in January and officially joined in April in hopes that the ICC would pursue their claim that Israel committed war crimes and further crimes against humanity in the West Bank and during the Gaza war last summer.

Meanwhile, ICC prosecutor Fatou Bensouda has stated that she has not received any information from either the Israelis or the Palestinians regarding the Gaza war. Palestinian Authority Foreign Minister Riyad al-Maliki claims that he is still waiting for the ICC’s official authorization for him to submit these documents.

The Times of Israel reports:

Last week, Bensouda warned Israel that if it doesn’t provide reliable information for her preliminary probe into possible war crimes in Palestinian territories, she may be forced to decide whether to launch a full-scale investigation based on Palestinian allegations.

At issue is the conduct of both the Israelis and the Palestinians in the Gaza war last summer which resulted in the deaths of 2,100 Palestinians and additional thousands left homeless. On the Israeli side, 66 soldiers and 6 civilians were killed. During the war, the Palestinians fired thousands of rockets into civilian neighborhoods in Israel, repeatedly violated negotiated ceasefires, and embedded their rocket launchers in crowded neighborhoods in Gaza, which maximized civilian casualties when Israel returned fire.

Bensouda claims that the investigation “will be conducted in the most independent and impartial way, devoid of any political considerations,” but Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu remains highly skeptical. Netanyahu derided the Palestinians’ decision to join the court as “scandalous” and said it makes the ICC “part of the problem and not part of the solution.”

At a cabinet meeting in January, Netanyahu promised to thwart Palestinian efforts to “drag IDF soldiers and commanders to the International Criminal Court in The Hague.”

Netanyahu added:

The Palestinian Authority has chosen confrontation with the state of Israel, and we will not sit with folded hands. Those who need to answer before a criminal court are the heads of the Palestinian Authority, who have forged an alliance with the war criminals of Hamas.