The top lawyer of the world’s main court for serious crimes wants to arrest the leaders of Israel and Hamas, including the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, for things they did during their seven-month war.
Netanyahu and his defense minister, Yoav Gallant, are not about to be arrested, but the International Criminal Court’s chief prosecutor’s announcement showed that Israel is more isolated because of the war in Gaza.
The prosecutor in court, Karim Khan, said that Netanyahu, Gallant, and three Hamas leaders, Yehia Sinwar, Mohammed Deif, and Ismail Haniyeh, did very bad things in Gaza and Israel and broke the law.
Netanyahu and other Israeli leaders criticized the action as shameful and against Jewish people. US President Joe Biden also criticized the prosecutor and stood by Israel’s right to protect itself from Hamas.
Three judges will choose if they should give arrest warrants and let a case continue. The judges usually need two months to make these decisions.
Israel is not in the court, so Netanyahu and Gallant are not in trouble right now, even if they have arrest warrants. But if the Israeli leaders are at risk of being arrested, it might be hard for them to go to other countries.
Netanyahu said the prosecutor’s accusations against him were very bad and a big attack on the Israeli military and the whole country. He promised to continue Israel’s fight against Hamas.
President Biden said it was wrong for the prosecutor to try to arrest Netanyahu and Gallant for the war in Gaza. He also said that Israel and Hamas are not the same and should not be treated as equals.
Hamas also criticized the ICC prosecutor for asking to arrest its leaders, saying it treats the victim and the attacker the same.
Netanyahu is being strongly urged in his own country to end the war as soon as possible. Many Israelis are going to protests every week. They want the government to make a deal to bring back Israeli hostages held by Hamas. They are worried that there is not much time left.
Lately, two other members of his war Cabinet, Gallant and Benny Gantz, said they will quit if Netanyahu doesn’t explain his plan for Gaza after the war.
On Monday, many politicians supported Netanyahu and criticized the ICC prosecutor’s decision. The people who were there were the president of Israel, Isaac Herzog, and his two main political opponents, Gantz and opposition leader Yair Lapid.
We don’t know how Khan’s decision will affect how people see Netanyahu. Netanyahu’s popularity has dropped during the war, but if there’s a chance he could be arrested, it might make people support him more. However, his opponents could also criticize him for causing a diplomatic disaster for the country.
Yuval Shany, who knows a lot about international law from Hebrew University and the Israel Democracy Institute, a think tank in Jerusalem, said it is very likely that Netanyahu’s reputation in other countries could get even worse.
Shany said that this will make Netanyahu unpopular, and it will be hard for him to travel to other countries. He said that even if the ICC does not give permission to arrest, other countries may be less willing to help.
The West thinks Hamas is a global terrorist organization. Both Sinwar and Deif are thought to be hiding in Gaza. Haniyeh, the leader of the Islamic militant group, lives in Qatar and often travels around the area. Qatar is not in the ICC like Israel.
The most recent fight between Israel and Hamas started on Oct 7, when fighters from Gaza went into Israel and killed around 1,200 people, mostly innocent people, and held 250 others captive.
Since that time, Israel has been fighting hard to break up Hamas in Gaza. More than 35,000 Palestinians have died in the fighting, and at least half of them were women and children, as estimated by Gaza health officials.
The fighting in Gaza has caused a big problem for the people living there. About 80% of the population have had to leave their homes and many don’t have enough food to eat. The United Nations says this is a very serious situation.
When talking about what Israel is doing, Khan said that using hunger as a weapon of war, along with other attacks and punishments against the people of Gaza, is causing a lot of suffering that everyone can see.
The United Nations and other groups that help people in need have said many times that Israel is stopping aid from getting to people during the war. Israel says it’s not true. They say aid can go to Gaza and they blame the UN for not giving out aid.
Hamas did some bad things on Oct 7. Khan went to the region in December and saw the terrible effects of these attacks. He said the crimes were very wrong.
Hamas fighters killed many people at a dance party and also killed whole families in their homes. “Khan said that these actions require responsibility. ”
South Africa wants to put Israel on trial at the UN and is happy that Khan wants to arrest Israeli and Hamas leaders. “The same rules must be used for everyone to support the international rule of law,” said President Cyril Ramaphosa’s office.
The ICC started in 2002 as a court that prosecutes people who are responsible for very serious crimes like war crimes, crimes against humanity, genocide, and aggression.
The UN General Assembly supported the ICC, but the court works on its own.
Many countries do not agree to let the court make decisions about war crimes, genocide and other crimes. They are Israel, the United States, Russia, and China.
The ICC agreed to let Palestine join in 2015, after Palestine agreed to follow the court’s rules in 2014.
In 2020, the United States President Donald Trump allowed punishments on the ICC prosecutor and another senior prosecutor related to travel and money. The ICC staff were investigating the United States. The soldiers from the United States and its friends may be accused of committing crimes during the war in Afghanistan. President Biden removed the penalties in 2021.
Last year, the court said that Russia’s President Putin is responsible for taking children from Ukraine, so they issued an arrest warrant for him. Russia answered by making its own request for arrest of Khan and ICC judges.