The International Criminal Court (ICC) is pursuing arrest warrants for Hamas leader in Gaza, Yahya Sinwar, and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity related to the October 7 attacks on Israel and the ensuing conflict in Gaza.
This announcement was made by the ICC’s prosecutor, Karim Khan, during an exclusive interview with CNN’s Christiane Amanpour on Monday.
Khan revealed that the ICC is also seeking warrants for Israel’s Defense Minister Yoav Gallant and two other senior Hamas leaders — Mohammed Deif, head of the Al Qassem Brigades, and Ismail Haniyeh, Hamas’ political chief.
The warrants for the Israeli officials mark a historic move as it is the first instance of the ICC targeting the top leader of a U.S. ally. This decision places Netanyahu alongside Russian President Vladimir Putin, who has an ICC warrant over the war in Ukraine, and the late Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi, who faced ICC charges for crimes against humanity before his death in October 2011.
By requesting warrants for both Israeli and Hamas leaders simultaneously, the ICC risks criticism for equating a recognized terror organization with a democratically elected government.
A panel of ICC judges will now review Khan’s application for the arrest warrants.
Khan said the charges against Sinwar, Haniyeh and al-Masri include “extermination, murder, taking of hostages, rape and sexual assault in detention.”
“The world was shocked on the 7th of October when people were ripped from their bedrooms, from their homes, from the different kibbutzim in Israel,” Khan told Amanpour, adding that “people have suffered enormously.”
On October 7, Hamas-led militants killed approximately 1,200 people across multiple locations in southern Israel and took around 250 hostages into Gaza. Many of these hostages are still being held, which, according to ICC prosecutor Karim Khan, means that crimes are continuing against numerous innocent Israelis. Khan highlighted that families are anxiously waiting for the return of their loved ones.
In his interview with CNN’s Christiane Amanpour, Khan revealed that his team possesses a “variety of evidence” to support the application for arrest warrants against Yahya Sinwar, Ismail Haniyeh, and Mohammed Deif. This evidence includes authenticated video footage, photographs from the attacks, and testimonies from eyewitnesses and survivors.
Responding to the announcement by Khan, Hamas said in a statement that it “strongly condemns the attempts of the ICC Prosecutor to equate victims with aggressors by issuing arrest warrants against a number of Palestinian resistance leaders without legal basis.”
‘Nobody is above the law’
The charges against Netanyahu and Gallant include “causing extermination, causing starvation as a method of war, including the denial of humanitarian relief supplies, deliberately targeting civilians in conflict,” Khan told Amanpour.
“The fact that Hamas fighters need water doesn’t justify denying water from all the civilian population of Gaza,” he added.
More than 35,500 Palestinians have been killed and more than 79,000 wounded in Gaza since October 7, the Ministry of Health in Gaza said on Monday. CNN cannot independently verify the figures.
Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, at left, and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, at right, are pictured. Getty Images/Shutterstock
Benny Gantz, a member Israel’s war cabinet, criticized Khan’s decision immediately after it was announced, saying that Israel was fighting “with one of the strictest moral codes in history, while complying with international law and boasting a robust independent judiciary.”
“Drawing parallels between the leaders of a democratic country determined to defend itself from despicable terror to leaders of a blood-thirsty terror organisation is a deep distortion of justice and blatant moral bankruptcy,” he said, adding that the decision by the prosecutors “is in itself a crime of historic proportion to be remembered for generation.”
When reports surfaced last month that the ICC chief prosecutor was considering this course of action, Netanyahu said that any ICC arrest warrants against senior Israeli government and military officials “would be an outrage of historic proportions,” and that Israel “has an independent legal system that rigorously investigates all violations of the law.”
Asked by Amanpour about the comments made by Netanyahu, Khan said: “Nobody is above the law.”
He said that if Israel disagrees with the ICC, “they are free, notwithstanding their objections to jurisdiction, to raise a challenge before the judges of the court and that’s what I advise them to do.”
Israel and the United States are not members of the ICC. However, the ICC claims jurisdiction over Gaza, East Jerusalem, and the West Bank after Palestinian leaders formally agreed to be bound by the court’s founding principles in 2015.
The ICC announcement on Monday is separate from the case currently being heard by the International Court of Justice (ICJ), which involves an accusation from South Africa that Israel is committing genocide in its war against Hamas following the October 7 attacks.
While the ICJ considers cases involving countries and nations, the ICC is a criminal court that brings cases against individuals for war crimes or crimes against humanity.
Monday’s announcement is not the first time the ICC has acted in relation to Israel. In March 2021, Khan’s office launched an investigation into possible crimes committed in the Palestinian territories since June 2014 in Gaza and the West Bank.
Located in The Hague, Netherlands, and created by a treaty called the Rome Statute first brought before the United Nations, the ICC operates independently. Most countries—124 of them—are parties to the treaty, but there are notable exceptions, including Israel, the US, and Russia.
If the court grants Khan’s application and issues arrest warrants for the five men, any country that is a member would have to arrest them and extradite them to The Hague.
Under the rules of the court, all signatories of the Rome Statute are obligated to cooperate fully with its decisions. This would make it extremely difficult for Netanyahu and Gallant to travel internationally, including to many countries that are among Israel’s closest allies, such as Germany and the United Kingdom.