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Arrest warrants issued for Netanyahu, Gallant and Hamas commander over alleged war crimes

 

Benjamin Netanyahu (L), Yoav Gallant (C) and Mohammed Deif (R) EPA / Reuters / Supplied


(ByThe BBC)

Judges at the International Criminal Court (ICC) have issued arrest warrants for Israel’s prime minister and former defence minister, as well as the military commander of Hamas.

A statement said a pre-trial chamber had rejected Israel’s challenges to the court’s jurisdiction and issued warrants for Benjamin Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant.

A warrant was also issued for Mohammed Deif of Hamas, although Israel has said he was killed in an air strike in Gaza in July.

The impact of these warrants will in part depend on whether the ICC’s 124 member states - which do not include Israel or its main ally, the United States - decide to enforce them or not.

The ICC has been part of the global justice system since 2002. It has the authority to prosecute those accused of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes on the territory of states party to the Rome Statute, its founding treaty.

Israel is not a member of the ICC and rejects its jurisdiction, but the court ruled in 2021 that it had jurisdiction over the occupied West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza because the UN’s secretary general had accepted the Palestinians were a member.

The Israeli prime minister’s office said Israel "utterly rejects the false and absurd charges of the International Criminal Court".

“Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will not give in to pressure. He will continue to pursue all the objectives that Israel set out to achieve in its just war against Hamas and the Iranian axis of terror,” it added.

Gallant said the court’s decision “places the State of Israel and the murderous leaders of Hamas in the same row and thus legitimizes the murder of babies, the rape of women and the abduction of the elderly from their beds”.

“The decision sets a dangerous precedent against the right to self-defence and moral warfare and encourages murderous terrorism,” he added.

Israeli President Isaac Herzog called the chamber’s decision “outrageous”, and said the ICC had “turned universal justice into a universal laughing stock”.

Hamas welcomed the warrants for Netanyahu and Gallant, saying that it “constitutes an important historical precedent, and a correction to a long path of historical injustice against our people”.

It also called on countries around the world to enforce the warrants and work to stop what it called “the crimes of genocide against defenceless civilians in the Gaza Strip”.

A White House National Security Council spokesperson said the US “fundamentally rejects” the court’s decision.

“We remain deeply concerned by the prosecutor’s rush to seek arrest warrants and the troubling process errors that led to this decision,” a White House national security council spokesperson said.

“The United States has been clear that the ICC does not have jurisdiction over this matter. In co-ordination with partners, including Israel, we are discussing next steps.”

However, EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said it was “not a political decision”.

“The decision of the court has to be respected and implemented,” he added, noting that it was binding on all EU member states.




Source: The BBC

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