The International Criminal Court, The Hague, Netherlands. Photo: Wikimedia Commons.

i24 News – The Palestinian Authority (PA) has suspended a petition lodged against the United States for officially recognizing Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and moving its embassy from Tel Aviv to the city, Israel Hayom reported on Monday.

The petition was initially filed in September 2018 with the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague, Netherlands when former President Donald Trump was in office.

The Palestinians claimed that the US actions regarding Jerusalem violated international law and thus constituted war crimes.

The ICC was set to review the petition in June, but two months earlier the PA submitted a request to freeze the petition process, which the ICC said was done in coordination with the administration of current President Joe Biden.

“In the letter to the tribunal registry on April 12, 2021,” the court said, “the State of Palestine verbally requested a deferral of the proceedings that were supposed to take place on June 1, 2021, in order to provide the sides an opportunity to find a solution to the disagreement through negotiations.”

According to the Israel Hayom report, Israeli officials believe that the move by the Palestinians was an attempt to curry favor with the US administration as they consider reopening the Palestinian consulate in Jerusalem, which Israel opposes.