ISRAEL HAS SUBMITTED a challenge to a request for arrest warrants for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defence Minister Yoav Gallant at the International Criminal Court for alleged crimes committed during the war in Gaza.
In May of this year, the ICC’s lead prosecutor Karim Khan request warrants for the arrest of Netanyahu and Gallant as well as three Hamas leaders - Mohammed Diab Ibrahim al-Masri (better known as Mohammed Deif), Yahya Sinwar and the now deceased former political leader Ismail Haniyeh, who was assassinated by Israel while visiting Iran at the end of July.
Israel claimed to have killed Mohammed Deif in August but Hamas has said he is still alive.
The 7 October attack on southern Israel by the Palestinian group resulted in the deaths of 1,205 people, most of whom were civilians. Hamas and other militants also seized 251 hostages, 97 of whom are still held in Gaza, including 33 the Israeli military says are dead.
Israel’s retaliatory siege, bombardment and invasion of Gaza has killed at least 41,272.
The ICC case is separate from the Genocide case taken by South Africa against Israel at the International Court of Justice.
The warrant requests were immediately condemned by both Israel and Hamas in May. The United States, which does not recognise the court, also criticised the request.
Israel, which also does not recognise the ICC, is challenging the court’s jurisdiction and the legality of Khan’s request, Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson Oren Marmorstein said in a post on social media today.
Israel has submitted two separate legal briefs, Marmorstein said.
The first deals with the court’s jurisdiction and the second details what Marmorstein called “the ICC Prosecutor’s wrongful breach of the Court’s Statute and the principle of complementarity, in failing to provide Israel with the opportunity to exercise its right to investigate by itself the claims raised by the Prosecutor, before proceeding”.
He said “a variety of other states” share the Israeli opinion of the case.
“No other democracy with an independent and respected legal system like that which exists in Israel has been treated in this prejudicial manner by the Prosecutor,” he said.
“Nevertheless, Israel remains steadfast in its commitment to the rule of law and justice, and will continue to protect its citizens against the ongoing attacks and atrocities by Hamas and other Iranian-backed terrorist proxies in the region.”
Khan said that in February 2021, he decided that the ICC can exercise its criminal jurisdiction in the “situation in the State of Palestine and that the territorial scope of this jurisdiction extends to Gaza and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem”.
ICC Prosecutor Karim Khan explains the charges against top Hamas and Israeli leadership in detail in this excerpt from his interview with @amanpour this morning at The Hague.
— CNN International PR (@cnnipr) May 20, 2024
The world exclusive airs in full today at 1pm ET | 6pm BST on @cnni pic.twitter.com/fyXkclT8BQ
In an interview in May, Khan told CNN that the charges against Netanyahu and Gallant include “causing extermination, causing starvation as a method of war, including the denial of humanitarian relief supplies and deliberately targeting civilians in conflict”.
He said that Israel has “intentionally and systemically deprived the civilian population in all parts of Gaza of objects indispensable to human survival”.
The charges against the Hamas leaders include “extermination, murder, taking of hostages, rape and sexual assault in detention”.
If granted, the warrants would mean that any of the 124 ICC member states would be obliged to arrest Netanyahu and Gallant if they travelled there.
Unlike the ICJ, which hears cases involving disputes between states, the ICC prosecutes individuals for the most severe offences, such as war crimes and crimes against humanity.
If the arrest warrants are granted, they would create serious diplomatic headaches for Israel’s allies that are member of the ICC.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has said that Germany would honour the warrants if they are issued.
The position of the United Kingdom has not been as clear cut. The Guardian reported today that Keir Starmer’s government is concerned about the potential political fallout that would come with the warrants.
The current Labour government withdrew the previous Conservative government’s filing with the ICC that argued it did not have jurisdiction. Netanyahu accused the UK of sending “mixed messages” over its support for Israel and “undermining” the country’s right to self-defence.
The most recent high profile warrant issued by the ICC was for the arrest of Russian President Vladimir Putin for his invasion of Ukraine.
But Mongolia recently flouted the authority of the court, of which it is a member, when Putin visited earlier this month and was not arrested.
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