JERUSALEM (JTA) — The chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court has decided for the third time not to open an investigation into the 2010 Gaza flotilla raid.
The office of Fatou Bensouda announced Monday that any possible war crimes committed in the incident involving the Israeli commando raid on the Mavi Marmara are not serious enough to merit opening a case.
In the May 2010 incident, nine Turkish passengers, including one U.S. citizen, were killed in clashes with Israeli commandos who had boarded the Mavi Marmara. The ship and five others in the flotilla sponsored by the Gaza Freedom Flotilla was trying to evade Israel’s maritime blockade of the Gaza Strip.
The first investigation request was filed with the ICC in 2013 by the Muslim-majority Comoros. The Mavi Marmara was licensed to the small island nation.
In November 2014, Bensouda decided there was “no reasonable basis to proceed with an investigation” into the incident. ICC appeals judges have forced her to reconsider the decision two more times.
Israel is not a member of the ICC. It has imposed a naval blockade on Gaza since the terrorist organization Hamas took over the coastal strip in 2007.
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