International Criminal Court in The Hague, Netherlands
By Gary Raynaldo – DIPLOMATIC TIMES
The International Criminal Court issued arrests warrants Thursday for Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant on charges of alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity. The Hague-based war tribunal also issued an arrest warrant for Hamas military chief Mohammed Deif for the same alleged crimes. The charges stem from Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attacks on Israel and the subsequent war in Gaza.
The ICC alleged in a statement that Netanyahu and Gallant “each bear criminal responsibility as co-perpetrators for the war crime of starvation as a method of warfare; and the crimes against humanity of murder, persecution, and other inhumane acts.” The ICC also alleged that Netanyahu and Gallant bear criminal responsibility for the war crime of intentionally directing an attack against the civilian population of Gaza.
The arrest warrants came a week after a UN report charged that Israel’s warfare in Gaza is consistent with the characteristics of genocide. The report accused Israel of intentionally causing death and using starvation as a method of war on the Palestinian people. The Gaza Health Ministry said Thursday that 44,056 people have been killed and 104,268 wounded since the start of the war. The ICC has been investigating Israel’s actions in Gaza for the past three years.
Israel Rejects ICC Allegations As “Absurd” and “Antisemitic”
Netanyahu’s office denounced the arrest warrants as antisemitic and absurd. “Israel utterly rejects the false and absurd charges of the International Criminal Court, a biased and discriminatory political body. No war is more just than the war Israel has been waging in Gaza since October 7th 2023, when the Hamas terrorist organization launched a murderous assault and perpetrated the largest massacre against the Jewish People since the Holocaust. The decision to issue an arrest warrant against the Prime Minister was made by a corrupt chief prosecutor who is trying to save himself from sexual harassment accusations and biased judges who are motivated by antisemitic hatred of Israel,” it stated. The prime minister’s office made reference to the fact that the ICC’s chief prosecutor Karim Khan himself is facing an external investigation over alleged sexual misconduct. Khan applied for the arrest warrants six months ago.
