U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris, in a call with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday, reaffirmed U.S. opposition to an International Criminal Court probe of possible war crimes in the Palestinian Territories, the White House said.
The call, the first between the two since Harris and President Joe Biden took office in January, came a day after the ICC prosecutor said she would launch the probe, prompting swift rejections by Washington and Jerusalem.
Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda, who will be replaced by British prosecutor Karim Khan on June 16, said in December 2019 that war crimes had been or were being committed in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. She named both the Israel Defense Forces and armed Palestinian groups such as Hamas as possible perpetrators.
Harris and Netanyahu noted their governments' "opposition to the International Criminal Court's attempts to exercise its jurisdiction over Israeli personnel," the White House said.