‘Nobody Is Above The Law’
The Oasis Reporters
May 21, 2024
By FP
Karim Khan, the top prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC), announced on Monday that he is seeking arrest warrants for five leaders involved in the Israel-Hamas war: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu; Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant; Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar; Hamas political chief Ismail Haniyeh; and Mohammed Diab Ibrahim al-Masri, the head of Hamas’s military wing.
Khan said his office has “reasonable grounds to believe” that these individuals “bear criminal responsibility” for war crimes and crimes against humanity, and he is asking the court to issue warrants for their arrest. In an interview with CNN’s Christiane Amanpour on Monday, Khan said the three Hamas leaders stand accused of “extermination, murder, taking of hostages, rape and sexual assault in detention,” among other charges, during and after the group’s Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel, in which more than 1,200 people were killed.
The Israeli leaders are accused of “causing extermination; causing starvation as a method of war, including the denial of humanitarian relief supplies; deliberately targeting civilians in conflict,” among other charges, during its assault on Gaza, where more than 35,500 people have been killed since last October.
“Nobody is above the law,” Khan said, indicating that more warrant applications could be issued in the future.
An arrest warrant would put Netanyahu in the company of Russian President Vladimir Putin, who is currently the subject of an ICC arrest warrant in connection with Russia’s war in Ukraine.
The warrant applications will now go to a pre-trial chamber of the ICC, where a three-judge panel will decide whether to issue them.
The ICC is an independent court endorsed by the United Nations that acts as an avenue of “last resort.” Like the United States, Russia, and China, Israel is not a party to the Rome Statute that established the ICC.
The court, however, ruled in 2021 that it has jurisdiction over alleged war crimes committed in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem.
If warrants are issued, these five individuals could face arrest if they travel to one of the 124 nations that are Rome Statute signatories.
Both Sinwar and Masri are believed to be hiding in Gaza, but Haniyeh is based in Qatar (which is also not an ICC member) and regularly travels across the Middle East.
Israel quickly denounced the ICC’s statement.
“The prosecutor’s position to apply for arrest warrants is in itself a crime of historic proportion to be remembered for generations,” war cabinet minister Benny Gantz said on Monday, with an Israeli official adding that the ICC’s decision “will not deter Israel from defending itself and accomplishing all its just war objectives.”
Hamas also condemned the ruling:
“The Hamas movement strongly denounces the attempts of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court to equate the victim with the executioner.”
Other world leaders were quick to criticize the move, including U.S. President Joe Biden, who called arrest warrants against Israeli leaders “outrageous.”
This is the first time that the ICC has targeted a close U.S. ally.
“The decision could permanently damage the court’s tenuous relationship with Washington regardless of whether the arrest warrants on Netanyahu and Gallant move forward, as Khan’s announcement is likely to derail a careful but significant shift in U.S. policy toward the ICC under the Biden administration,” FP’s Robbie Gramer and Jack Detsch report.
Israel is facing numerous legal challenges over its actions in Gaza over the years.
In March 2021, the ICC launched an investigation into possible war crimes committed in Gaza and the West Bank since June 2014.
And last December, South Africa filed a genocide case against Israel in the International Court of Justice.
©Foreign Policy.
