Credit: Wikipedia /  Free Gaza movement /  MV Mavi Marmara leaving Antalya for Gaza on May 22, 2010.

By Gary Raynaldo    DIPLOMATIC TIMES

The International Criminal Court (ICC) on Wednesday dismissed an appeal against a decision not to probe Israel over a deadly raid on an aid flotilla to Gaza in 2010. Nine people were killed when Israeli commandos stormed the Mavi Marmara ship in 2010. The Hague-based tribunal’s prosecutor Fatou Bensouda found in December there was no basis to proceed with a full investigation. On 14 May 2013, the Union of the Comoros – a State Party to the Rome Statute – referred to the ICC Prosecutor the situation concerning ‘the 31 May 2010 Israeli raid of the Humanitarian Aid Flotilla bound for Gaza Strip’.   On 6 November 2014, the Prosecutor decided not to initiate an investigation, as she considered that the potential case(s) likely to arise following an investigation would not be of ‘sufficient gravity’ to justify further action by the ICC.  On 16 July 2015, Pre-Trial Chamber I requested the Prosecutor to reconsider her decision, and did so again on 15 November 2018, having found that the Prosecutor had failed to properly reconsider. Pre-Trial Chamber I’s decision of 15 November 2018 was confirmed on appeal. On 2 December 2019, following reconsideration, the Prosecutor once again reaffirmed her position that no potential case arising from the situation would be sufficiently grave to justify further action by the ICC.

In the decision issued today, Pre-Trial Chamber I found that the Prosecutor did not genuinely reconsider her 6 November 2014 decision not to investigate. The Chamber found that the Prosecutor failed to correct the errors identified by the Chamber in the 16 July 2015 decision and committed new errors in her assessment of the gravity of the potential case(s).

Israeli commandos boarded the Mavi Marmara by descending on ropes from helicopters.  What touched off the deadly carnage would be disputed by both sides.  The IDF later said that its forces were attacked with clubs, knives and metal rods as they began to land from the first helicopter, with three soldiers taken captive.  Those on board, including a reporter for Al Jazeera, said the Israelis fired on the boat before boarding. Israel said it opened fire after its commandos were attacked by activists wielding knives, clubs and pistols wrested from its soldiers.