Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant, accused of extermination. Photo: Abir Sultan
This is published in haste, a response to reader’s requests for details on the warrant issue and how it works. The chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) has declared he is formally seeking arrest warrants for senior Hamas, (almost all in Gaza now dead!) and Israeli official for war crimes and crimes against humanity, including the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and his defence minister, Yoav Gallant.
But that is only the beginning of the process. The prosecutor must request the warrants from a pre-trial panel of three judges, who take on average two months to consider the evidence and determine if the proceedings can move forward. However, the warrants are a nightmare for Netanyahu now categorised internationally as a murdering criminal, and will watch countries ban his entry to them. Going public with his aim to kill every Hamas member in Palestine, (a futile aim; war creates more enemies) is as good as saying his intent is extermination.
The conscience of the world awaits
Karim Khan said his office has applied to the world court’s pre-trial chamber for arrest warrants for the military and political leaders on both sides for crimes committed during Hamas’s 7 October attack and the ensuing war in Gaza. “We have a variety of evidence to support the applications we’ve submitted to the judges.” Netanyahu and Gallant are accused of extermination, causing starvation as a method of war, the denial of humanitarian relief supplies and deliberately targeting civilians. “These acts demand accountability,” Khan’s office said in a statement.
The ICC has previously issued warrants for the Russia’s Vladimir Putin, Muammar Gaddafi of Libya, and the Ugandan warlord Joseph Kony, but no leader of a “western-style” democracy has ever been issued a warrant before. And none have ever been issued for an American president though a few are guilty (together with Henry Kissinger) of the most horrific war crimes, particularly in Vietnam and South America.
Investigating both sides
The ICC decided in 2021 that it had a mandate to investigate violence and war crimes committed by Israel and Palestinian factions in events dating back to 2014, although Israel is not a member of the court and does not recognise its authority. Khan visited the Egyptian side of the Rafah border crossing into Gaza in late October, and Israel and the West Bank in December, and had made clear that his investigation would include 7 October attack.
Israel’s establishment, and much of the public, have long maintained that the UN and associated bodies are biased against the Jewish state, the age-old disreputable tactic of tarring critics with the fabrication, if you don’t support us you are anti-Semitic.
A stressed Netanyahu
Earlier this month, Netanyahu appeared to be publicly panic-stricken by the prospect of an ICC prosecution, and reportedly appealed to his ally Joe Biden, the US president, to intervene in any potential legal action against Israel. Any ICC warrants could put Israeli officials at risk of arrest in other countries, further deepening the country’s growing international isolation over its conduct in the war in Gaza. About 1,200 people, mostly civilians, were killed on 7 October, and about 35,000 people have been killed in the war in Gaza, according to the Palestinian health ministry, which does not differentiate between civilian and combatant death, as they need not when anyone earing a ‘tea towel’ on their head is categorised as the hideous enemy.
The sophistry
Benny Gantz, a former military chief and member of Israel’s war cabinet with Netanyahu and Gallant, criticised Khan’s announcement, saying Israel fights with “one of the strictest” moral codes and has a robust judiciary capable of investigating itself”. There was a deathly silence after he spoke.
He named Yahya Sinwar, the Hamas chief in the Gaza Strip, and Mohammed Deif, the commander of its military wing, who is based in Qatar, are wanted for crimes of extermination, murder, hostage taking, and torture. But so far, with a question mark over the death of some hostages by unknown causes, the hostages released say they were treated fairly and fed well, which is more can be said for the innocent women and children of Gaza treated as collateral damage.
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Grouse Beater 
all western nations ,countries are complicit in crimes against humanity.
settler colonialism has committed genocide across the world.
hamas is not a terrorist organisation they were an elected body by Palestinians.
they are a resistance movement against occupation.
Palestine must be reinstated as a country by any means outwith the veto control of western states and any vassals .
This alone is a crime.
From my understanding , the WW2 German Nazi’s weren’t convicted of genocide , but of crimes against humanity.
The yanks , and all the western states , countries are guilty of crimes against humanity.
Heads of the armed forces and their politicians should also be brought to court.
Von Der lying is a one.
🐼🐼🏴🏴
If I could give a ‘thumbs up’ vote for your comment ambouche I would. I’ve grown
hoarse shouting at the tv, on Al Jazeera of course I no longer watch yUK channels,
that Hamas are just the same as the French Resistance in WW2. And nobody
considered them a terrorist organisation.
Nuremberg also tried the Nazis with genos-cide. Tribe or Race Killing. A Polish Jewish lawyer advising the US prosecutor Justice Robert Jackson came up with the phrase to describe the Nazi policy of extermination of European Jews. The advisor was Raphael Lemkin? It is a tragic irony.
CONSCIOUS. NO. WE’RE LIVING IN A BASTARDS WORLD. WEIRD. THANK YOU GARETH. IT’S MADNESS 😠