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There are “reasonable grounds” to believe Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu bears criminal responsibility for war crimes and crimes against humanity, the Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court has said.
In a statement issued on Monday, Karim Khan said he was also seeking arrest warrants for leaders of Hamas.
Mr Khan said he believes Mr Netanyahu's Defence Minister Yoav Gallant and three senior Hamas officials – Yahya Sinwar, the head of the militant group; Mohammed Diab Ibrahim Al Masri (also known as Mohammed Deif), commander in chief; and Ismail Haniyeh, the head of its political bureau, are all also responsible for war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza and Israel.
A panel of three ICC judges will consider whether or not to accept the applications. They take on average two months to consider the evidence and determine if the proceedings can move forward.
If granted, the warrant means that technically any of the 124 ICC member states would be obliged to arrest Mr Netanyahu and the four others if they travelled to their countries.
But while the warrant could complicate some travel for Mr Netanyahu, the court has no mechanism to enforce its warrants, relying on its members to play ball.
Speaking of the Israeli actions, Mr Khan said in a statement that “the effects of the use of starvation as a method of warfare, together with other attacks and collective punishment against the civilian population of Gaza are acute, visible and widely known.
“They include malnutrition, dehydration, profound suffering and an increasing number of deaths among the Palestinian population, including babies, other children and women.”
He added: “We submit that the crimes against humanity charged were committed as part of a widespread and systematic attack against the Palestinian civilian population pursuant to sate policy.
“These crimes, in our assessment, continue to this day.”
Of the Hamas actions on October 7, he said he had seen for himself “the devastating scenes of these attacks and the profound impact of the unconscionable crimes charged in the applications filed today”.
“Speaking with survivors, I heard how the love within a family, the deepest bonds between a parent and a child, were contorted to inflict unfathomable pain through calculated cruelty and extreme callousness. These acts demand accountability.”
Benny Gantz, a former military chief and member of Israel’s war cabinet with Mr Netanyahu and Mr Gallant, criticised Mr Khan’s announcement, saying Israel fights with “one of the strictest” moral codes and has a robust judiciary capable of investigating itself.
“The state of Israel is waging one of the just wars fought in modern history following a reprehensible massacre perpetrated by terrorist Hamas on October 7,” he said.
“The prosecutor’s position to apply for arrest warrants is in itself a crime of historic proportion to be remembered for generations.”
Israeli opposition leader, Yair Lapid, said the latest development was “a disaster”.
However, Israeli National Security Minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, urged Mr Netanyahu to ignore the ICC and Mr Khan, deeming both anti-Semitic. He said the Gaza war should intensify until Hamas is defeated.
Rumours the court was about to take action had been circulating for weeks, prompting Mr Netanyahu to publish his reaction beforehand.
Israel would “never accept” the ICC's “outrageous” rulings, he said in a message on X. “We will not bow to it.”
A Hamas official said the ICC'S decision “equates the victim with the executioner” and encourages Israel to “continue its war of extermination”.
Two hundred days of Israel-Gaza war – in pictures
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Palestinians move with their belongings on a road lined with destroyed buildings, in Khan Younis, in the south of the Gaza Strip, on April 22. AFP -
An infant saved from the womb of her mother Sabreen Al Sheikh, who was killed in an Israeli strike along with her husband Shokri and her daughter Malak, lies in an incubator at Al Emirati hospital in Rafah, on April 21. Reuters -
A man rides a bicycle, on April 2, past a damaged vehicle where employees from the World Central Kitchen non-profit, including foreigners, were killed in an Israeli air strike. Reuters -
A woman at the damaged Al Shifa Hospital, on April 1, after Israeli forces withdrew from the medical complex following a two-week siege. Reuters -
The view from a Jordanian flight dropping vital aid by parachute into Gaza, in March. Matthew Kynaston / The National -
Nozha Awad flees Al Shifa hospital with her triplet children, after an Israeli raid siege began at the medical complex, in March. Reuters -
Palestinians gather to receive aid outside a UNRWA warehouse, in March. Reuters -
A family end their fast amid the rubble of their destroyed home, during Ramadan in Rafah, in March. Reuters -
Wafaa Tabasi with her twin malnourished daughters, at Al Awda health centre in Rafah, in March. Reuters -
Palestinians carry bags of flour taken from an aid lorry near an Israeli checkpoint in Gaza City, in February. Reuters -
Fernando Simon Marman and Louis Hare, two Israeli hostages who, according to the Israeli military, were freed in a special forces operation in Rafah, reunite with loved ones at Sheba Medical Centre, in Ramat Gan, Israel, in February. Reuters -
Palestinian Muhammad Al Durra with his children in the ruins of a house in Rafah where they sheltered on January 11, 2024. EPA -
Family and friends at the funerals of journalists Hamza Al Dahdouh and Mustafa Thuraya on January 7, 2024 in Rafah, Gaza. Getty Images -
Palestinians mourn relatives killed by Israeli bombardment of the Gaza Strip outside a mortuary in Khan Younis January 4, 2024. AP Photo -
Displaced Palestinians queue to bake bread at a camp in the Muwasi area of Rafah, Gaza Strip, on December 23, 2023. AP Photo -
Palestinians queue for food in Rafah, the Gaza Strip, on December 20, 2023. AP Photo -
The ruins of Rafah on December 14, 2023. AFP -
Palestinians wounded in the Israeli bombardment of the Gaza Strip arrive at a hospital in Khan Younis on December 8, 2023. AP Photo -
Palestinians flee Israeli bombing along the Salaheddine Road in the Zeitoun district of Gaza city on November 28, 2023. AFP -
A Red Cross vehicle takes Israeli hostages from the Gaza Strip into Egypt in Rafah on November 25, 2023. AP -
The ruins of buildings in Gaza city on November 24, 2023, as a temporary truce between Israel and Hamas took effect. AP Photo -
A woman and her cat return home to eastern Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip during the first hours of a four-day truce between Israel and Hamas forces on November 24, 2023. AFP -
Mourning the dead of Israeli bombardment outside the mortuary at Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis on November 14, 2023. AFP -
Civilians and rescuers look for survivors in the rubble of a building after Israeli bombing of Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip on November 12, 2023. AFP -
November 7, 2023, a month to the day after Hamas attacked Israel, a victim of an Israeli bombardment in Rafah is moved from the rubble. AFP -
Searching the rubble after Israeli air strikes on the town of Khan Younis, southern Gaza Strip, on October 26, 2023. AP Photo -
Mourning the Kotz family at their funeral in Gan Yavne, Israel, on October 17, 2023. AP Photo -
An Israeli firefighter composes himself after he and his colleagues extinguished cars set on fire by a rocket fired from the Gaza Strip in Ashkelon, Israel, on October 9, 2023. AP Photo -
Palestinians with the wreckage of an Israeli tank at the Gaza Strip fence east of the city of Khan Younis on October 7, 2023, the day Hamas forces swept unopposed into Israel. AP Photo -
Israeli police officers evacuate a woman and a child from a site hit by a rocket fired from the Gaza Strip, in Ashkelon, southern Israel, on October 7, 2023. AP Photo
US President Joe Biden blasted the ICC's move, calling it “outrageous”.
“And let me be clear: whatever this prosecutor might imply, there is no equivalence – none – between Israel and Hamas,” Mr Biden said.
“We will always stand with Israel against threats to its security.”
The State Department said the ICC has no jurisdiction over the issue, and that Mr Khan has “rushed” to seek these arrest warrants against Israel, without giving the country's legal system “a full and timely opportunity” to conduct its own investigations.
“There are also deeply troubling process questions,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken said. “Despite not being a member of the court, Israel was prepared to co-operate with the prosecutor."
The UK government said that seeking arrest warrants would not help achieve a sustainable ceasefire in Gaza.
A UK government representative said: “We do not believe that seeking warrants will help get hostages out, get aid in, or deliver a sustainable ceasefire.
“As we have said from the outset, we do not think the ICC has jurisdiction in this case. The UK has not yet recognised Palestine as a state, and Israel is not a state party to the Rome Statute.”
The Czech Prime Minister, Petr Fiala, called the court's actions “completely unacceptable”.
However, Hadja Lahbib, the Belgian Foreign Minister, said “crimes committed in Gaza must be prosecuted at the highest level, regardless of the perpetrators”.
“Belgium supports the work of the ICC. The request submitted by the court’s prosecutor, Karim Khan, for arrest warrants against both Hamas and Israeli officials is an important step in the investigation of the situation in Palestine,” she said.
Specialist war crimes lawyer Catriona Murdoch, who is also the Global Rights Compliance Vice President, told The National legal action will take years.
“It raises the stakes in terms of pressure on Mr Netanyahu and Mr Gallant to respect international humanitarian law,” she added.
“It also sends a stark reminder to Israel’s allies that no one is above the law.”
Director of think tank the Counter Extremism Project, Hans-Jakob Schindler, called the request for arrest warrants “powerless” and questioned whether they would be enforced if they are issued as they are “very unlikely to ever travel to a country in which the ICC has jurisdiction”.
Director of think tank the Henry Jackson Society Alan Mendosa added: “This is the start of an arrest warrant process, not the end, and there will be no consequences for Israeli leaders unless and until the ICC judges agree to issue them.”
Last week, Israel defended its attack on the south of Gaza against claims of genocide, telling the UN’s highest court that any state would do the same.
Denying a claim by South Africa that Rafah is the “endgame” of Gaza’s destruction, Israel said it entered the city to bring down a “military stronghold for Hamas”.
It told the International Court of Justice it wishes no harm to Palestinian civilians and that Hamas militants were responsible for the war's “suffering and pain”.
The Israeli government had been worried about possible arrest warrants for its leadership and the US has been publicly opposed to any ICC investigation.
“We’ve been really clear about the ICC investigation, we do not support it,” White House spokeswoman Karine Jean-Pierre said last month. “We don’t believe that they have the jurisdiction.”
The ICC investigates and tries individuals charged with genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity and the crime of aggression.
Israel has not ratified the ICC’s statute and does not recognise its jurisdiction. The “State of Palestine” has been a member of the court since 2015. The US has never been a party to the ICC.
The ICC prosecutor in 2021 opened a probe into Israel as well as Hamas and other armed Palestinian groups for possible war crimes in the Palestinian territories.
UAE drop aid into Gaza – in pictures
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Palestinians rush to intercept humanitarian aid packages as they land in the northern Gaza Strip, dropped by a UAE plane in a joint effort with Egypt. All photos: AFP -
Men carry boxes of aid through the rubble of damaged buildings after the airdrop -
The packages are a lifeline for many amid the continuing war in the Gaza Strip -
A youth carries a box of aid to his family -
The additional supplies – including food – were sent by parachute into remote areas -
The UAE has been donating humanitarian relief to Gaza since shortly after the latest war began -
A man collects this aid package from the UAE-Egypt airdrop
Mr Khan has said this investigation now “extends to the escalation of hostilities and violence since the attacks that took place on October 7, 2023 “.
He has also called several times for all hostages in Gaza to be released and warned against Israeli military action in Rafah.
“All wars have rules and the laws applicable to armed conflict cannot be interpreted so as to render them hollow or devoid of meaning,” he said in February.
Last year, the court issued an arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin for war crimes related to the alleged abduction of children from Ukraine, a move that was dismissed by the Kremlin.
The court has issued a total of 42 arrest warrants since being founded in 2002. Half, or 21 suspects, have been taken into custody. It has secured 10 convictions, with four acquittals.
