Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad has welcomed the International Criminal Court’s (ICC) announcement on opening an investigation into Israeli crimes against the Palestinians in the occupied territories.

He said Israel should face justice over the atrocities committed against the Palestinian people, as quoted by the official Malaysian news agency Bernama.

“Israel should be tried by the International Criminal Court (ICC) for killing people, for stealing other people’s territory, for building settlements in other people’s land. All these things are crimes,” he told a press conference at the conclusion of the Kuala Lumpur Summit (KL Summit) 2019 yesterday.

Mahathir, who chaired KL Summit, pointed out that Israel had even detained ships carrying out humanitarian missions joined by Malaysians in international waters.

“You can’t do those things in international waters. If it’s in their national waters, yes they can take action. But we were in international waters. They came in gunboats, they stopped our ships and took our ships to their ports, and until now we don’t know whether the aid that was intended for Gaza was delivered or not,” Dr Mahathir said, adding that the Israeli actions also caused deaths.

He said “the whole world not only closed one eye but they closed both eyes, and their mouths and their ears too”.

On Friday, the Prosecutor of the Hague-based International Criminal Court (ICC), Fatou Bensouda, announced that its office was going to open an investigation into Israeli crimes against the Palestinians in Palestine.