News - Middle East: The Palestinian foreign ministry has called on the International Criminal Court (ICC) to complete its ongoing investigations into Israeli crimes against Palestinians and hold the occupying regime to account for its decades of violations of international law.

The ministry, in a statement on Sunday, urged the international community to exert real pressure on the occupying regime to stop its bloody escalation against the Palestinian people, Ma’an news agency reported.

The statement called on “the International Criminal Court to quickly complete its investigations in order to hold the occupying [regime] and the perpetrators accountable.”

“The occupation practices extrajudicial killings, field executions, and firing live bullets at Palestinian citizens, with the aim of killing and degrading the lives of Palestinian citizens, under instructions from the political and military echelons of the occupying [regime],” it said.

“The Israeli occupation authorities are fully and directly responsible for the ongoing crimes against our people, their land, homes, properties, and sanctities, which have led since the beginning of this year to the martyrdom of 12 citizens, including 3 children, and the last of them were 3 martyrs in embryo.”

The Palestinian foreign ministry also noted that the violations and crimes committed by the occupation will only increase the Palestinian people’s insistence on upholding their rights, saying the increase in such crimes indicates that the current year will be worse than the previous year.