On Friday, the International Criminal Court (ICC) ruled that its jurisdiction extends over the West Bank, Gaza Strip, and eastern Jerusalem—despite the fact that Israel is not a member of the court. To provide a logical framework for the decision, the court created the legal fiction of a Palestinian state with borders corresponding to the territory seized by Egypt and Jordan during their invasion of Mandatory Palestine in 1948. This ruling makes it possible for the court’s prosecutor to continue with an investigation into her claims of a “reasonable basis to believe” that Israel committed “war crimes” while responding to murderous attacks from Gaza, and by allowing Jewish citizens to live in the West Bank. Alan Baker comments:

What was intended to be an independent juridical body devoted to preventing the impunity enjoyed by the most serious and atrocious war criminals, by bringing them to justice, is now being politically manipulated against the one state that since the early 1950s has consistently advocated the establishment of such a body, the state of Israel.

The irony is all the more evident given the legal acrobatics of the politically oriented and politically influenced prosecutor of the court, and the majority of judges of the [court’s] pretrial chamber, in their obstinate and flawed insistence on attributing elements of statehood and sovereignty to a Palestinian entity that is distinctly—legally, politically, and by all international standards—not a state.

[Because it] is not a state, then it cannot claim to have any sovereign territory, and thus, even according to the statute of the ICC, which is open to states only, it cannot be the subject of the court’s jurisdiction. Thus the Palestinians have absolutely no standing in the court. This decision by the pretrial chamber to accept the contention of the prosecutor, based purely on nonbinding, non-legal, and unauthoritative political resolutions of the UN General Assembly, defies all legal logic.

[Thus] the court is permitting itself to become irreparably prejudiced. Any juridical integrity, credibility, and bona fides that it might have had are being irreparably harmed.

Early Friday morning, Israel attacked military installations near the Iranian cities of Isfahan and nearby Natanz, the latter being one of the hubs of the country’s nuclear program. Jerusalem is not taking credit for the attack, and none of the details are too certain, but it seems that the attack involved multiple drones, likely launched from within Iran, as well as one or more missiles fired from Syrian or Iraqi airspace. Strikes on Syrian radar systems shortly beforehand probably helped make the attack possible, and there were reportedly strikes on Iraq as well.

Iran itself is downplaying the attack, but the S-300 air-defense batteries in Isfahan appear to have been destroyed or damaged. This is a sophisticated Russian-made system positioned to protect the Natanz nuclear installation. In other words, Israel has demonstrated that Iran’s best technology can’t protect the country’s skies from the IDF. As Yossi Kuperwasser puts it, the attack, combined with the response to the assault on April 13,

clarified to the Iranians that whereas we [Israelis] are not as vulnerable as they thought, they are more vulnerable than they thought. They have difficulty hitting us, but we have no difficulty hitting them.

Nobody knows exactly how the operation was carried out. . . . It is good that a question mark hovers over . . . what exactly Israel did. Let’s keep them wondering. It is good for deniability and good for keeping the enemy uncertain.

The fact that we chose targets that were in the vicinity of a major nuclear facility but were linked to the Iranian missile and air forces was a good message. It communicated that we can reach other targets as well but, as we don’t want escalation, we chose targets nearby that were involved in the attack against Israel. I think it sends the message that if we want to, we can send a stronger message. Israel is not seeking escalation at the moment.