The Palestinian Authority has been pushing the United Nations Human Rights Council to establish a mechanism to help foreign countries and the International Criminal Court prosecute Israelis after the Trump administration sanctioned the court.

The Palestinian representatives circulated a draft resolution in Geneva on Tuesday, ahead of a vote likely to take place at the end of the UNHRC’s current session, on April 3 or 4.

The 10-page draft resolution, viewed by Jewish Insider, would “establish an ongoing international investigative mechanism … to assist in the investigation and prosecution of persons responsible for the most serious crimes under international law committed in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem.”

The forms of assistance would include “to collect, consolidate, preserve, and analyze evidence of violations of international law and human rights violations and abuses, and to prepare case files in order to facilitate and expedite fair and independent criminal proceedings.” 

The new mechanism would work in cooperation with the existing open-ended UNHRC commission of inquiry on Israeli treatment of the Palestinians. The commission’s panelists have a history of antisemitic statements and inflammatory remarks against Israel, and they accused Israel of genocide last year. The COI’s mandate already allows it to gather evidence for legal cases, which it can continue doing in perpetuity, such that it was not immediately clear what novel authorities the new mechanism would provide the body.

The funding for the investigation would come from voluntary contributions, the resolution states.

Israel is concerned that the evidence gathered by the mechanism would not only support the ICC’s case against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, but could also be used by courts in foreign countries to prosecute Israeli citizens and IDF veterans, a diplomatic source told JI.

The resolution comes after the Trump administration imposed sanctions on the International Criminal Court last month, citing the court’s “baseless actions targeting America and our close ally Israel” and issuing of arrest warrants for Netanyahu and Gallant last year. The sanctions block entry to the U.S. and property and assets in the U.S. belonging to anyone directly involved with the ICC’s investigations and prosecutions. 

Jerusalem and Washington reached out to friendly countries on the UNHRC to vote against the resolution, a Republican defense staffer and an Israeli diplomatic source separately told JI.

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) predicted that the United States would not take kindly to this push, which he called a “dangerous effort” to take advantage of the low “public opinion, particularly in Europe, against Israel right now.”

“I don’t know how serious this is, but it’s unnerving to me that the Human Rights Council would be contemplating such action. I think it’s a way of trying to get around the ICC and have some international body like the U.N. come after Israeli citizens. If that’s the case, this will be met with great resistance in Congress, and I’m sure the administration will push back too, but it’s just another example of how international bodies have completely lost their way when it comes to Israel,” Graham told JI in an interview on Wednesday. 

“The Palestinians are pushing on an open door when it comes to Europe and other countries throughout the world regarding Israel. I think the Palestinians believe they can create a wedge here between the international community and Israel and maybe the United States,” he continued. “My message will be simple: Any country that engages in aiding and abetting this effort will regret it.”

Hillel Neuer, executive director of U.N. Watch, said that “the U.N. Human Rights Council is at it again — planning to create yet another anti-Israel mechanism, to aggravate its existing, permanent legal witch hunt against Israel, while ignoring if not legitimizing the atrocities of Hamas.”

“The UNHRC has become an assembly line for politically motivated lawfare, not an impartial forum for human rights,” Neuer added. “Instead of promoting justice, this resolution undermines it by singling out the world’s only Jewish state for relentless, one-sided scrutiny.”

Israel and the U.S. left the UNHRC last month. Israel is the only country to which the UNHRC dedicates a regular agenda item, and has been the subject of over 20% of all resolutions ever passed by the council, more than any other country.