President Joe Biden on Monday called the International Criminal Court’s chief prosecutor’s announcement that he is seeking arrest warrants against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other Israeli leaders on war crimes and crimes against humanity charges. It was criticized as “unreasonable”.
“Let me be clear: No matter what this prosecutor says, there is no equivalence between Israel and Hamas,” 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 ICC’s application for arrest warrants 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 is shameful,” Blinken said. “Hamas is a brutal terrorist organization that carried out the worst genocide of Jews since the Holocaust and continues to hold dozens of people, including Americans, hostage.”
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 say the targeted Israeli and Hamas leaders are unlikely to be prosecuted, but the arrest warrants could make it difficult for them to travel abroad and would be embarrassing for the Israeli government. pointed out.
Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Galant may also face a warrant for his arrest as pressure continues at home and abroad for Israel to halt its military offensive in Gaza and secure a ceasefire and hostage release agreement with Hamas. .
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 allege that the crimes against humanity charged were committed as part of a widespread and systematic attack against Palestinian civilians based on state policy,” Khan said in a statement from the ICC, adding that the ICC’s office said it had not released any video or other information on Palestinian civilians. He added that he had extensive evidence, including interviews with Survivor. “Our assessment is that these crimes continue to this day.”
Hamas’s military commander-in-chief, Mohamed Diab Ibrahim al-Masri, and Hamas’ political bureau chief, Ismail Haniyeh, also face possible ICC arrest warrants for their roles in the October 7 attack.
“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 monster of Hamas to the soldiers of the Israeli Defense Forces, the most moral army in the world?” Prime Minister Netanyahu said in a statement. “How dare you compare Hamas, which has murdered, burned, butchered, raped and kidnapped our brothers and sisters, with the soldiers of the Israel Defense Forces, who are fighting a just war unparalleled in unparalleled morality? Do you want to?”
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.
“Putting the leaders of a country that went into battle to defend its people in the same category as bloodthirsty terrorists is moral blindness and a violation of their duty and ability to protect their people,” he said in a post on X in Hebrew.
The Forum of Families of Hostages and Missing Persons, which represents Hamas families of those taken hostage in the Oct. 7 attack, also said in a statement that it was “uncomfortable at the depiction of an equal relationship between the Israeli leadership and Hamas terrorists.”
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 in a phone interview with NBC News on April 29, before the arrest warrant was issued, that a “veteran observer” of the ICC said the court was “only dealing with Israeli officials.” He said he expected to issue arrest warrants against Hamas leaders as well.
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 began investigating possible war crimes by both Israeli and Palestinian militants 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 comes after Palestinians who joined the court in 2015 asked the ICC about Israel’s actions during the 2014 war in the Gaza Strip and its settlements in the occupied West Bank and annexed East Jerusalem. It was initiated following a request to investigate the construction. Many people around the world consider the settlements illegal under international law.
It is unclear exactly when the ICC began its investigation into Israeli attacks in Gaza. The attacks began after Hamas launched an Oct. 7 offensive in the country that left 1,200 people dead and around 250 taken hostage. Gaza health officials put the death toll at more than 35,000. He has since passed away.
Mr Khan, who visited the area in December, said the investigation was being “progressed swiftly, rigorously and decisively carried out with a commitment to acting on hard evidence, 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.”
Mokhibel, who served as head of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights’ New York office, resigned in November in protest at the UN’s failure to condemn the “textbook genocide” committed by Israeli forces against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.
Finucane, who is also an adjunct senior fellow at New York University School of Law’s Center on Lease Law and Security, 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 general counsel in the State Department’s Office of Legal Counsel under 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”.
