The chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC), Karim Khan KC, has formally requested arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the leaders of Hamas in Gaza on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity.
Alongside Netanyahu, Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant and Hamas’s political leader Ismail Haniyeh, as well as Hamas’s military chief Mohammed Deif, were also named in the recommendation for arrest.
However, the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the Palestinian resistance group, Hamas have separately reacted to the arrest proposal by the ICC prosecutor over acts of genocide in Gaza since October 7,2023.
Their reaction followed a proposal by Khan KC, seeking approval by the court’s judges to arrest Neyanyahu and his Minister of Defence, Gallant on one hand, and Hamas political leader, Haniyeh and head of military Chief, Deif on the other, for their alleged complicity in acts of genocide, and the relentless bombardments and killing of civilians in Palestine by the Israeli forces.
The ICC will consider the application and if the judges all agree, the arrests can be carried out by the court’s 124 member states.
Foreign media reports monitored today cited Netanyahu as describing the ICC prosecutor’s move as beyond outrageous, saying that Israel is not even a signatory to the convention setting up the ICC, and is therefore not obligated to respect its decision.
Neyanyahu insisted that Israel has the right to defend itself against acts of terrorism by Hamas, and even cited the Holocaust as a case in point when Jewish people were massacred without remorse.
For Hamas, the ICC recommendation for the arrest of Netanyahu and members of his war team was long overdue, and called for all soldiers and military operatives who took part in the war crime to be held to account.
Hamas said the ICC has treated its leaders as offenders in equal proportion as the Israeli war leaders by also calling for their arrest, and took exception to that as inappropriate.
Also, Israel’s foreign minister Israel Katz said the move was “scandalous” and tantamount to attacking the victims of 7 October.
Reuters reported that he said he had opened a special war room to counteract the ICC’s move, adding that no force in the world will prevent Israel from bringing back its hostages from Gaza and toppling Hamas.
Finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, said the decision would be “the last nail in the dismantling of this political and antisemitic court,” adding that “arrest warrants (for Netanyahu and Gallant) are the arrest warrants for all of us.”
War cabinet member Benny Gantz, who has recently threatened to pull his party from Israel’s coalition government said “Drawing parallels between the leaders of a democratic country determined to defend itself from despicable terror to leaders of a blood-thirsty terror organisation (Hamas) is a deep distortion of justice and blatant moral bankruptcy.”
Netanyahu and Gallant were accused of extermination, causing starvation as a method of war, the denial of humanitarian relief supplies and deliberately targeting civilians.
The Hamas-led health authority in Gaza has said the death toll from Israel’s military campaign in the Gaza Strip is over 35,500 Palestinians, while Israel says it has lost 282 soldiers since ground operations began. It has not been possible for journalists to independently verify the casualty figures being issued during the conflict.
The arrest warrant move on Hamas has also been condemned by senior Hamas official Sami Abu Zuhuri, who said the decision “equates the victim with the executioner” and encourages Israel to continue its “war of extermination” in Gaza.
Wasel Abu Youssef of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) said there was confusion over who was the victim, and that “The Palestinian people have the right to defend themselves. The ICC is required to issue arrest warrants against Israeli officials who are pursuing crimes of genocide in the Gaza Strip.”
Hamas leaders and officials Yahya Sinwar, Mohammed Deif and Ismail Haniyeh were named as being wanted for crimes of extermination, murder, hostage taking, rape, sexual assault and torture.
Hamas and other groups in Gaza are believed to be still holding about 129 hostages of the approximately 250 seized and abducted during the 7 October surprise attack inside southern Israel.
Israeli authorities put the death toll caused by the 7 October attack at about 1,140.
