The International Criminal Court announced warrants for the arrest of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel, former Israeli defense minister Yoav Gallant, and Hamas leader Muhammed Deif.
The International Criminal Court said on Thursday that it had issued arrest warrants for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel and his former Israeli defense minister, Yoav Gallant, for war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza, dealing an extraordinary blow to Israel’s global standing as it battles militants on multiple fronts.
The court on Thursday also said it had issued a warrant for the arrest of Muhammad Deif, Hamas’s military chief, for crimes against humanity, including murder, hostage taking and sexual violence. Israel said in August that it had killed Mr. Deif.
The court’s chief prosecutor had requested the warrants in May, prompting Israel to fiercely deny the allegations and challenge the court’s legitimacy. The warrants issued Thursday have not been made public, but the court said they include accusations of using of starvation as a weapon of war and “intentionally directing an attack against the civilian population.”
Mr. Netanyahu’s office swiftly rejected what it called “absurd and false accusations,” insisting in a statement on Thursday that Israel would continue to defend its citizens by fighting in Gaza. The Israeli leader “will not surrender to the pressures; he will not recoil or withdraw until all of the war’s goals — that were set at the start of the battle — are achieved,” Mr. Netanyahu’s office said.
Israel is not a member of the court, so Mr. Netanyahu and Mr. Gallant, whom the prime minister recently fired, do not face any risk of arrest at home. But the warrants mean that they could be arrested if they travel to one of the court’s 124 member nations. That includes most European countries, though not the United States, and could contribute to Mr. Netanyahu’s isolation.
Izzat al-Rishq, a senior Hamas official, issued a statement that did not mention the warrant for Mr. Deif. He said that whether or not Mr. Netanyahu or Mr. Gallant were arrested, “the truth that has been revealed is that international justice is with us and against” Israel.
Also from NY Times:
Since he requested the warrants in May, Karim Khan, the I.C.C. prosecutor, has come under scrutiny. Earlier this month, the court said it was commissioning an independent investigation into allegations of sexual misconduct against him.
The court announced its decision in a pair of press releases, but it did not make the warrants themselves public. The panel of three judges who signed the warrants said they wanted to protect witnesses and the conduct of ongoing investigations. The court said the judges had disclosed their decision because the crimes addressed in the warrants may be continuing, and because it was “in the interest of victims and their families.”
So. Does this put any obligation on normal American citizens at all?Report
Remember the episode of the Andy Griffith Show where Gomer and Barney got into a tiff and Gomer arrested Barney, shouting “Citizen’s arrest!”? Kind of like that.Report
The US isn’t a member country of the ICC, so it doesn’t even put any obligations on the US government.Report
On the government, no…
I’m more wondering about the citizens.Report
This was a political statement, i.e. “we the world doesn’t like the war” trying to masquerade as a legal one.
They’re going to try to arrest two Jews and a dead man for war crimes when Israel is fighting an openly genocidal terror group. The dead man is in there for balance so it doesn’t look like they’re only going after Jews.
The entire point of having the court is to provide law where there is none. Israel has functional courts, Gaza does not. If they’re going to lower the bar far enough that they can arrest Bibi then they should have long ago tried to arrest Hamas leadership and not just dead men.Report
Only Israel/Jews have agency while the Palestinians/Muslims have utterly no agency at all. They just merely react to whatever the Jews are doing. This is one of the things that really angers me about the entire moment. It just seems that the Jews in general and Israeli Jews in particular are given a big list of things that we need to do while the Muslims and Palestinians need to do nothing. We are supposed to teach how wonderful Islam is to our children while the Muslims get to go to the bathroom on us and teach their children how we are the demented grandparent that can’t get with the times. We have to perform acts of self-flagelation for our alleged crimes against the Palestinians while the Palestinians and other Muslims don’t have to reflect at all.
Anti-Semitism is truly the permitted hatred and Jews are expected to just deal with quite a lot of it. Things that would be considered utterly intolerable for every other persecuted group in the world are tolerated or even encouraged against Jews. Jews have been debating and struggling about the Palestinians from before Israel existed. This debate can range from “we are committing sins” to “we must make an agreement” to “smash them all” but it exists. From what I can tell, the number of Palestinians and their allies that dealt with what would happen to Jews without Israel is a zero or a number close to it. The question about the Jews simply doesn’t exist in the pro-Palestinian world. It is seen as a distraction. Something to be ignored.Report
Well, this doesn’t give Netanyahu much incentive to end the Israel-Hamas war or stop being Prime Minister.Report