Date: April 29th, 2024 10:34 PM
Author: up-to-no-good iridescent ratface
Israel is concerned that the International Criminal Court is preparing to issue arrest warrants against its senior-most officials on charges related to Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza, according to Israeli officials.
Western officials have reached out to the court to express unease with any imminent decisions because of the potential to undercut U.S.-led diplomacy to achieve a cease-fire and free some of the 129 hostages taken Oct. 7 and held in Gaza.
Israeli officials think the court, based in The Hague, is preparing warrants for members of the country’s top leadership, in what would be the most serious international legal actions taken against Israel since war broke out in October.
Israel has faced accusations from United Nations bodies, foreign officials and human-rights groups that it has violated international law during its military operation in Gaza, which followed the Hamas attack on Israel in October that Israel says killed about 1,200 people, mostly civilians. More than 34,000 people have been killed in the ensuing war in Gaza, most of them civilians, according to Palestinian health authorities. The figure doesn’t specify how many were combatants.
Three European officials said the issue was raised at the Group of Seven foreign ministers meeting earlier this month. Two of the officials said the U.S. and the U.K. were thought to have reached out to the court.
However, the officials stressed that Western capitals didn’t want to intervene to pressure the ICC over its decisions.
Mourners pray Monday near Rafah, Gaza Strip. Photo: Mohammad Jahjouh/Associated Press
The White House doesn’t think the ICC has jurisdiction in the investigation, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Monday when asked about reports that the court might issue arrest warrants. “We do not support it,” she said about the investigation.
House Speaker Mike Johnson (R., La.) criticized the ICC. “It is disgraceful that the International Criminal Court is reportedly planning to issue baseless and illegitimate arrest warrants against” Israeli officials, he said in a statement.
The ICC didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said last week on the social-media platform X that “Israel will never accept any attempt by the ICC to undermine its inherent right of self-defense.”
“The threat to seize the soldiers and officials of the Middle East’s only democracy and the world’s only Jewish state is outrageous,” he said.
Israel, like the U.S., isn’t a party to the Rome Statute, which puts countries under the ICC’s jurisdiction. The court in 2015 recognized the State of Palestine as a signatory, and in 2021 determined itself as having jurisdiction in the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem. Palestine isn’t recognized by the U.S. and Israel. ICC Prosecutor Karim Khan said in November that the ICC’s investigation was ongoing and included the escalation of hostilities and violence since Hamas’s October attack.
Khan has said his prosecutors were working to hold responsible Hamas militants who carried out October’s attack on Israel. The court also has said it is looking into war-crimes allegations against militants who have fired rockets at Israeli civilians or have fired missiles they know don’t have the sophistication to avoid civilian casualties.
Roy Schondorf, a former deputy to the Israeli attorney general, said arrest warrants take time to build “given the complexity of some of the legal and factual issues related to what people say the prosecutor is concerned about.”
He added, “It’s a high risk to go to the court for arrest warrants of a country and then end up with an acquittal at the end of the process or the court rejecting the request.”
Schondorf said that Hamas also could expect arrest warrants from the ICC given the abundance of video evidence.
Israel is generally considered to have a robust legal system and Israeli authorities have routinely investigated and prosecuted many crimes that could potentially fall under international court jurisdiction, discouraging courts from interfering. Israel’s Supreme Court is currently pressing the government to increase humanitarian aid into Gaza, and Israeli military authorities have investigated possible breaches of international law. Israel is facing increased scrutiny, however, because of its war in Gaza and the humanitarian crisis the conflict has triggered in the enclave.
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If the court were to issue arrest warrants, it would require the more than 120 countries signed onto its founding treaty to detain the Israeli leaders, putting travel restrictions on them—and placing many Israeli allies in a bind.
“That’s something quite significant,” said Eran Shamir-Borer, formerly the Israeli military’s top international lawyer and now at the Jerusalem-based think tank Israel Democracy Institute. Analysts say that the court doesn’t need to notify officials of arrest warrants issued against them ahead of time, in part to aid enforcement.
In January, the International Court of Justice, another Hague-based court, required Israel to enable humanitarian aid to the enclave’s civilian population and take every measure to prevent destruction of its Palestinian community.
Khan traveled to Israel and the Palestinian territories in December as part of the investigation.
Rockets soared toward Israel from the Gaza Strip in October. Photo: Fatima Shbair/Associated Press
For Western officials, any overt pressure on the court could cause international backlash. The U.S. and its European allies trumpeted that the ICC last year issued arrest warrants for Russian President Vladimir Putin and another senior Kremlin official accused of war crimes, a historic move that focused attention on tens of thousands of young war victims.
Last month, the court issued warrants for two Russian commanders it accused of targeting Ukraine’s power grid and killing civilian bystanders.
Separately, State Department spokesman Vedant Patel publicly confirmed Monday that the department “found five Israeli units responsible for individual incidents of gross violations of human rights,” with all of the incidents taking place before Oct. 7 and none of them in Gaza.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken informed Congress of the findings in a letter released Friday, The Wall Street Journal reported.
Four of the units have effectively remediated violations, Patel said. The U.S. has been working with Israel to resolve issues with the fifth unit, as the Biden administration faces potential issues with regard to a U.S. statute that prohibits aid to foreign security forces found to have committed human-rights abuses. “We are engaging in a process and will make an ultimate decision when it comes to that unit when the process is complete,” Patel said.
Max Colchester and Peter Saidel contributed to this article.
Write to Laurence Norman at laurence.norman@wsj.com
(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5522833&forum_id=2#47620258)