Over the course of Israel's devastating seven-month war against Hamas, a fierce parallel battle has unfolded over various international legal mechanisms to hold individuals accountable.
On Monday, Karim Khan, the chief prosecutor at the International Criminal Court, announced that he would seek arrest warrants for the Israeli prime minister, the country's defense minister and three senior officials of the Palestinian militant group Hamas in connection with alleged war crimes and crimes. . against humanity.
Here's some background on Monday's move:
Who are those named in the court order request?
Benjamin Netanyahu: The Israeli prime minister, the country's longest-serving leader and head of the most right-wing government in Israel's history, orchestrated his government's response to the Hamas-led attack on October 7 that killed about 1,200 people in the southern Israel. Netanyahu has resisted growing pressure from the Biden administration and governments around the world to stop Israel's military attack on Gaza, which Israel says is aimed at destroying Hamas and rescuing dozens of people who were taken hostage. , but what the Palestinians call genocide.
Yahya Sinwar: Sinwar, a member of Hamas since the 1980s who rose through its ranks through a combination of military ingenuity and extreme brutality, is considered the main mastermind behind the October 7 attack. After long stints in Israeli military prisons during which he learned to speak fluent Hebrew, he was freed in a prisoner exchange in 2022. Sinwar, a Gaza native whose family was displaced during Israel's war of independence, tops the lists of most wanted in Israel, but has managed to evade death or capture by taking refuge in Hamas' network of underground tunnels. Israel has called him a “dead man walking.”
Ismail Haniyeh: Hamas supreme leader Haniyeh is based in Qatar, a Gulf state that has assisted in mediation efforts. As the group's political leader, he frequently travels around the region. Last month, Haniyeh said three of his children and four of his grandchildren were killed in an Israeli airstrike in Gaza. He called them martyrs. The Israeli military said the slain sons were members of Hamas's military wing, which Haniyeh denied.
Muhammad Deif: Deif, a senior Hamas military commander who was maimed by repeated Israeli attempts on his life, is by far the darkest figure named by the ICC prosecutor. He is known to have long overseen the group's bomb-making capabilities, and led dozens of suicide bombings against Israeli buses and cafes in the 1990s and early 2000s.
Yoav Galan: The Israeli Defense Minister is a member of Netanyahu's conservative Likud party, as well as the so-called Israeli War Cabinet formed after October 7. Gallant has come under outside scrutiny for declaring early in the fighting that Israel would impose a total blockade of food and fuel. about Gaza, as well as his use of the term “human animals,” which Israel says was intended to describe Hamas, not all Palestinians. Gallant, whom Netanyahu tried to overthrow before the war began, has repeatedly tangled with the prime minister and, most recently, declared that he would not support an indefinite military occupation of Gaza.
What do Israel and Hamas say?
A March 2024 photo of Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz.
(Getty Images)
Israel responded angrily to the prosecutor's announcement, denouncing it as a rejection of its right to self-defense following the October 7 attack.
In a fiery statement, Netanyahu called the order request “absurd and false” and said it was directed against Israel as a whole. He also insisted that he would not alter Israel's war objectives. Foreign Minister Israel Katz called the prosecutor's announcement a “historic disgrace” and said a special panel would be created to challenge any further action by the court aimed at targeting Israeli leaders or officials.
Hamas also denounced the request for a court order. In a statement on the messaging app Telegram, he said that Israeli leaders, as well as military officers and soldiers, were responsible for “crimes against the Palestinian people.” A senior Hamas official, speaking to Reuters news agency on condition of anonymity, also criticized the ICC prosecutor's move, saying he “equates victim with executioner.”
What has the United States government said?
President Biden called the injunction request “outrageous” and said it created a false equivalence between Israel and Hamas. His administration also said the request could jeopardize efforts to reach a ceasefire agreement, reach an agreement on the release of hostages and step up humanitarian assistance to Palestinians in Gaza.
What exactly did the prosecutor say?
Khan's statement, which blamed both Israel and Hamas, declared that “international law and the laws of armed conflict apply to everyone,” adding that “no foot soldier, no commander, no civilian leader – no one – can act with impunity. “The prosecutor said that the right to self-defense does not exempt Israel from its obligations to comply with international humanitarian law.
“Whatever military objectives they may have, the means Israel chose to achieve them in Gaza (i.e., intentionally causing death, hunger, great suffering and serious harm to the body or health of the civilian population) are criminal,” he wrote.
Khan's warrant request also takes detailed aim at Hamas, describing direct evidence of murder, sexual violence and torture carried out by the October 7 attackers. In the ad, he cites the “profound impact of unconscionable crimes,” including “unfathomable pain through calculated cruelty and extreme callousness.”
“These acts demand responsibility,” he wrote. Khan and a research team visited the West Bank and Israel in December, but did not enter Gaza.
In making the decision to execute the arrest warrants, Khan consulted with a panel of international law experts. Among them was London-based human rights lawyer Amal Clooney, who said in a statement posted on the Clooney Foundation for Justice website that the panel's conclusions were unanimous.
What happens next?
Israelis protest against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government outside the Israeli parliament in Jerusalem.
(Menahem Kahana/AFP/Getty Images)
Arrest warrants may not end up being issued, although Khan's announcement suggests confidence that they will. A panel of three investigative judges must first weigh the evidence and make a decision. There is no set deadline for that and it could take months.
Even if arrest warrants are issued, none of the defendants face much chance of being arrested unless they travel to any of the 124 countries that recognize the ICC's jurisdiction. Israel and the United States are not signatories to the ICC, but most European countries are.
The court does not allow trials in absentia. But particularly in the case of a head of state or a high-ranking official, such an accusation deepens international isolation.
Has the ICC taken similar actions in other conflicts?
Monday's announcement echoes the action ICC judges took 14 months ago against Russian President Vladimir Putin, whose forces launched a full-scale invasion of neighboring Ukraine 27 months ago. The arrest warrant cited the kidnapping of Ukrainian children in Russia, but did not address many other alleged Russian atrocities that had taken place during the course of the war.
Although the United States is not a signatory to the treaty establishing the ICC, Washington sometimes cooperates with the court. For example, on Monday, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said the United States was continuing to provide evidence to the ICC about Russian war crimes in Ukraine.
Not really, even if it largely focuses on the same events. The ICC, which was created in 2002 to try cases of people accused of war crimes, genocide and crimes against humanity, is different from the International Court of Justice, although both are based in The Hague. The latter is weighing a much-watched claim by South Africa that Israel is carrying out genocide in Gaza. Israel is vociferously contesting that accusation.
What is happening on the ground in Gaza?
Palestinians who were forced to migrate to the central city of Deir al Balah to protect themselves from attacks on Gaza by Israel and ensure their safety line up to receive drinking water distributed by aid organizations in Gaza on Monday.
(Anadolu/Getty Images)
The ICC prosecutor's move comes in the context of a new advance by Israeli ground forces on Monday in central Gaza and Israeli bombing in the north of the territory. Israel has also signaled its intention to expand its incursion into Rafah, a Gaza city on the border with Egypt where hundreds of thousands of Palestinians have sought refuge.
Israel says it is pursuing Hamas into its remaining major strongholds, but the United States and many other Western governments and humanitarian groups have warned that an all-out Israeli offensive on Rafah would likely cause huge civilian casualties.
Meanwhile, famine threatens about half of Gaza's more than 2 million people, according to the United Nations and other groups. Large portions of the narrow 40-kilometre-long territory have been leveled by aerial bombardment or torn apart by Israeli ground raids. The health system barely exists and around four-fifths of the population is displaced. In addition to some 35,000 Palestinians killed, according to a UN count, thousands more are still believed to be buried under tons of rubble.
