PLO urges ICC probe into Gaza child killings by Israel

The Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) on Monday called on the International Criminal Court (ICC) to launch an investigation into an Israeli airstrike that killed three children in the Gaza Strip.

“The international community and its institutions must break their silence towards the incessant crimes committed by the occupation army,” the PLO said in a statement.

Three children aged between 12 and 14 were martyred late Sunday in the Israeli raid near the eastern border of the Gaza Strip.

The Israeli army claimed that "the children were trying to tamper with the security fence and apparently planted an explosive device".

The PLO accused the Israeli army of “deliberately killing” the three children.

“The ICC is requested to launch an immediate investigation into this crime,” it added.

In late December, 2014, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas signed the Rome convention and appendixes related to the ICC, which accepted the Palestinian request to become one of its members in April 2015.

For the last seven months, Palestinians in Gaza have been staging regular demonstrations along the Gaza-Israel buffer zone to demand the right to return to their homes in historical Palestine from which they were driven in 1948.

They also demand an end to Israel’s 12-year blockade of the Gaza Strip, which has gutted the coastal enclave’s economy and deprived its two million inhabitants of many basic commodities.

Since the rallies began on March 30, more than 200 Palestinians have been martyred-- and thousands more injured -- by Israeli troops deployed along the other side of the buffer zone.