The Israeli Prime Minister and members of Hamas are the subject of a request for an arrest warrant against them by the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC). A panel of ICC judges must now confirm them, or not.
The prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC), Karim Khan, requested in a statement published this Monday, May 20, arrest warrants against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant as well as against several leaders of Hamas for war crimes and crimes against humanity. The alleged acts were allegedly committed within the Gaza Strip. The crimes accused of the Israeli head of government and his Minister of Defense include crimes such as “deliberately starving civilians”, “extermination and/or murder” or “intentional homicide”. Now, a panel of ICC judges must approve, or not, these arrest warrants, reports CNN.
In order to justify the establishment of these arrest warrants, the International Criminal Court specifies in its press release that several “elements of evidence collected and examined” make it possible to place responsibility for war crimes and crimes against humanity on the against Benyamin Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant, committed in the Palestinian territory “from at least October 8, 2023”.
As bombings continue in the Gaza Strip since the terrorist attack carried out by Hamas against Israel on October 7, Karim Khan said that civilian populations are the subject of a “continuation of a widespread attack and systemic in the pursuit of an organization’s policy. Asked on April 30 about a possible arrest warrant issued against him, Benjamin Netanyahu considered “that no decision, whether from The Hague or elsewhere, will in any way undermine our determination to reach all the objectives of the war”, reports BFMTV.
In addition to members of the Israeli government, arrest warrants were also requested against Yahya Sinouar, Mohammed Diab Ibrahim Al-Masri and Ismail Haniyeh, respectively leader of Hamas in the Gaza Strip, head of the armed wing of Hamas and head of the movement’s political wing. They are notably accused of war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in Israel and the Gaza Strip. In addition, accusations of “murder”, “hostage-taking”, “extermination”, “torture” or even “rape and other forms of sexual violence” have been brought against them. “My office notes that there are reasonable grounds to believe that they are criminally responsible for the murder of hundreds of Israeli civilians during the attacks perpetrated on October 7, 2023 by Hamas,” explained the ICC prosecutor, which specifies that several of these crimes still continue to be committed.