Karim Khan,the court’s chief prosecutor,has previously confirmed that his team is investigating incidents during the war,but his office declined to comment for this article,saying that it did not “respond to speculation in media reports”.
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Netanyahu’s office also would not comment,but on Friday the prime minister said on social media that any intervention by the ICC “would set a dangerous precedent that threatens the soldiers and officials of all democracies fighting savage terrorism and wanton aggression”.
Netanyahu did not explain what prompted his statement,though he may have been responding to speculation about the arrest warrants in the Israeli press.
He also said:“Under my leadership,Israel will never accept any attempt by the ICC to undermine its inherent right of self-defence. The threat to seize the soldiers and officials of the Middle East’s only democracy and the world’s only Jewish state is outrageous. We will not bow to it.”
Based in The Hague,the ICC is the world’s only permanent international court with the power to prosecute individuals accused of war crimes,genocide and crimes against humanity. The court has no police force of its own. Instead,it relies on its 124 members,which include most European countries but not Israel or the United States,to arrest those named in warrants. It cannot try defendants in absentia.
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But warrants from the court can pose obstacles to travel for officials named in them.
The Hamas-led raid in October led to the killing of roughly 1200 people in Israel and the abductions of some 250 others,according to Israeli officials. The subsequent war in Gaza,including heavy Israeli bombardment,has killed more than 34,000 people,according to Gaza officials,caused widespread damage to housing and infrastructure,and brought the territory to the brink of famine.
The Israeli assault in Gaza has led the International Court of Justice,a separate court in The Hague,to hear accusations of genocide against the Israeli state and has spurred a wave of protests on college campuses in the United States.
If the ICC does issue arrest warrants,they would come with deep stigmatisation,placing those named in them in the same category as foreign leaders such as Omar al-Bashir,the deposed president of Sudan,and Vladimir Putin,the Russian president,who was the subject of a warrant last year tied to his war against Ukraine.
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The ICC’s focus on individuals rather than states differentiates it from theInternational Court of Justice,which settles disputes between states.
Khan has declared that his team believes it has the jurisdiction to investigate episodes that have occurred since October and said that he would be “impartially looking at the evidence and vindicating the rights of victims whether they are in Israel or Palestine”.
Khan’s office has also been investigating allegations of war crimes committed during the 2014 war between Israel and Hamas;one of the officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity believes the new arrest warrants would be an extension of that investigation.
Hamas and the Israeli military did not respond to requests for comment. The office of Yoav Gallant,the Israeli defence minister,declined to comment.
In general,Israeli officials say that they fight according to the laws of war and that they take significant steps to protect civilians,accusing Hamas of hiding inside civilian areas and forcing Israel to pursue them there. Hamas has denied committing atrocities on October 7,saying — despite video evidence to the contrary — that its fighters tried to avoid harming civilians.
This article originally appeared inThe New York Times.
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