President Joe Biden said the International Criminal Court's chief prosecutor announced Monday that he would seek arrest warrants to indict Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other Israeli leaders on war crimes and crimes against humanity. He called it “outrageous.”
“Let me be clear: No matter what this prosecutor says, there is no equivalent relationship between Israel and Hamas. There is none,” Biden said in a statement.
Appearing in the Rose Garden to celebrate Jewish American Heritage Month later that day, Biden said, “Israel wants to do everything in its power to ensure the protection of civilians,'' adding, “There are a lot of things that are happening. It's not a genocide.” we reject it. ”
“Let me be clear: We reject the International Criminal Court's application for an arrest warrant against Israeli leaders,” Biden said.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken echoed Biden's tough response to the upcoming announcement. Prosecutors intend to detain Prime Minister Netanyahu and other Israeli leaders, as well as Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar and other Hamas leaders. He was responsible for the October 7 Hamas attack on Israel and the subsequent Israeli military invasion of Gaza.
“It's a disgrace,” Blinken said. “Hamas is a brutal terrorist organization that carried out the worst massacre of Jews since the Holocaust, and continues to hold dozens of people hostage, including Americans.”
ICC Prosecutor General Karim A.A. Khan said in a statement that he had “applied for arrest warrants” for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Mr. Sinwar and other senior Israeli and Hamas officials who played key roles in the ongoing Gaza war. ” he said.
A three-judge panel will now decide whether to issue an arrest warrant and allow the case to proceed. It typically takes a judge two months to make such a decision.
Experts said the targeted Israeli and Hamas leaders were unlikely to be prosecuted, but the arrest warrants could make it difficult for them to travel abroad and would be an embarrassment to the Israeli government. .
Israeli Defense Minister Job Gallant may also face an arrest warrant as pressure continues at home and abroad on Israel to halt military attacks in the Gaza Strip and secure a ceasefire and hostage release agreement with Hamas. There is.
Mr. Khan said that Netanyahu and Mr. Gallant committed acts of starvation, intentionally inflicting “great suffering and serious injury” on civilians, intentionally killing them, and intentionally carrying out attacks on civilians. He said he was criminally responsible for a series of “war crimes,” including giving instructions.
“We maintain that the crimes against humanity charged were committed as part of a widespread and systematic attack against Palestinian civilians in accordance with state policy,” Khan said in an ICC statement, adding that his He added that the office has extensive evidence, including videos and interviews with survivors. “In our assessment, these crimes continue to this day.”
Hamas military chief Mohamed Diab Ibrahim al-Masri and Hamas political director Ismail Haniyeh also face possible ICC arrest warrants for their role in the October 7 attack. There is.
“We assert that the crimes against humanity charged are part of a widespread and systematic attack carried out by Hamas and other armed groups against Israeli civilians in accordance with the organization's policies.” Mr. Ng wrote. “Our assessment is that some of these crimes continue to this day.”
Israeli leaders were trying to block the ICC's issuance of the warrant through diplomatic channels, an Israeli official told NBC News last month.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu denounced the announcement as “ridiculous.”
“How dare you compare the soldiers of the Israel Defense Forces, the most moral army in the world, with the monsters of Hamas?” Prime Minister Netanyahu said in a statement. “How dare you compare Hamas, which has murdered, burned, massacred, raped, and kidnapped our fellow citizens, with the soldiers of the Israel Defense Forces, who fight for justice with unparalleled moral integrity? Is it?”
Gallant was not immediately available for comment. But Israeli war cabinet minister Benny Gantz, a political rival of Netanyahu who recently threatened to resign from the government unless it adopts a new plan for the war in Gaza, condemned the announcement.
“It is moral blindness and a violation of the duty and ability to protect the people to put the leaders of a country who go into battle to protect their people on the same level as bloodthirsty terrorists,” he told X in Hebrew. I mentioned it in my post. .
The Forum for Families of Hostages and Missing Persons, which represents the families of Hamas hostages taken in the October 7th attack, also said in a statement that “a parallel relationship is being drawn between the Israeli leadership and Hamas terrorists.'' I feel uncomfortable,” he said.
In a statement, Hamas separately condemned “an attempt by the International Criminal Court's prosecutor to issue arrest warrants against numerous Palestinian resistance leaders and to equate victims with executioners.”
International law expert Brian Finucane said “seasoned observers” of the ICC expected the court to issue warrants “not only against Israeli officials but also against Hamas leaders.” international law expert Brian Finucane told NBC News in a phone interview on April 29, before the court opened. A warrant was issued.
The ICC, based in The Hague, Netherlands, can charge people with war crimes and other related charges. The court hears cases between states and is independent from the International Court of Justice, which investigates whether Israel committed acts of genocide in Gaza.
Three years ago, the ICC launched an investigation into possible war crimes by both Israeli and Palestinian extremists dating back to the 2014 Israel-Hamas war.
At the time, State Department spokesman Ned Price said the United States had “grave concerns” about the investigation.
The investigation was launched after Palestinians, who joined the court in 2015, asked the ICC to look into Israel's actions during the 2014 war in Gaza and its construction of settlements in the occupied West Bank and annexed east Jerusalem, which many around the world consider illegal under international law.
It is unclear exactly when the ICC began its investigation into Israeli attacks in Gaza. The attacks began after Hamas attacked the country on October 7, killing 1,200 people and taking about 250 hostages.Gaza health officials say more than 35,000 people He has since passed away.
Khan, who visited the area in December, said the investigation was “proceeding rigorously, decisively and swiftly, with the insistence that we act on solid evidence and not emotion.”
Human rights activists and experts in the region welcomed Monday's development.
“The state of Israel is on trial before the ICJ, its leaders are the subject of indictment requests before the ICC, its allies are the subject of lawsuits in domestic courts, independent human rights institutions have condemned them, and millions of people are taking to the streets to demand justice, said former United Nations human rights official Craig Mokhiver. I said this in Monday's post on X.. “Justice will be served.”
Mohiber, who previously headed the New York office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, was protesting the UN's failure to condemn what he called a “textbook genocide” by Israeli forces against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. He resigned in November.
Finucane, who is also an adjunct senior fellow at the Lease Center for Law and Security at New York University School of Law, told NBC News: Neither Israel nor the United States recognize the court's jurisdiction.
But he added that the warrants put Israeli officials at risk of arrest in other countries, including much of Europe.
“As a practical matter, an ICC arrest warrant can serve as a travel ban,” said Finucane, who served as a legal advisor in the State Department's Office of Legal Counsel during the Obama and Trump administrations.
In addition, in March 2023, the ICC issued an arrest warrant for Prime Minister Netanyahu for war crimes in Ukraine, which placed Prime Minister Netanyahu on an equal footing with Russian President Vladimir Putin on the international stage. Become.
Mr Finucane said Mr Biden “welcomed that announcement and believes it is justified”.
