ICC arrest warrants against Netanyahu and Gallant hailed as a step forward towards justice
This article has been updated.
The decision by the International Criminal Court (ICC) to issue arrest warrants against Israel’s prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former defence minister Yoav Gallant has been hailed as a step forward towards justice, but has provoked angry reactions among politicians in the United States.
The judges in Pre-Trial Chamber I of the court also issued an arrest warrant against Mohammed Diab Ibrahim Al-Masri, more commonly known as Deif, the commander-in-chief of the military wing of the Islamic resistance movement Hamas, known as the Al-Qassam Brigades. Israel said in August that Deif was killed in an air strike in southern Gaza.
The ICC said there were reasonable grounds to believe that Netanyahu and Gallant had committed the war crime of starvation and numerous crimes against humanity.
“With regard to the crimes, the Chamber found reasonable grounds to believe that Mr Netanyahu, born on 21 October 1949, Prime Minister of Israel at the time of the relevant conduct, and Mr Gallant, born on 8 November 1958, Minister of Defence of Israel at the time of the alleged conduct, each bear criminal responsibility for the following crimes as co-perpetrators for committing the acts jointly with others: the war crime of starvation as a method of warfare; and the crimes against humanity of murder, persecution, and other inhumane acts,” the court said.
It added: “The Chamber also found reasonable grounds to believe that Mr Netanyahu and Mr Gallant each bear criminal responsibility as civilian superiors for the war crime of intentionally directing an attack against the civilian population.”
In relation to the warrant against Deif, the court said: “The Chamber found reasonable grounds to believe that Mr Deif, born in 1965, the highest commander of the military wing of Hamas (known as the al-Qassam Brigades) at the time of the alleged conduct, is responsible for the crimes against humanity of murder; extermination; torture; and rape and other form of sexual violence; as well as the war crimes of murder, cruel treatment, torture,; taking hostages; outrages upon personal dignity; and rape and other form of sexual violence.”
It added: “The Chamber found reasonable grounds to believe that Mr Deif bears criminal responsibility for the aforementioned crimes for (i) having committed the acts jointly and through others and (ii) having ordered or induced the commission of the crimes, and (iii) for his failure to exercise proper control over forces under his effective command and control.”
The court also said: “The Chamber found reasonable grounds to believe that during the relevant time, international humanitarian law related to international armed conflict (between Israel and Palestine) and non-international armed conflict (between Israel and Hamas) applied.
“The Chamber also found that there are reasonable grounds to believe that the crimes against humanity were part of a widespread and systematic attack directed by Hamas and other armed groups against the civilian population of Israel.”
Global reactions
The UN’s special rapporteur on Palestine, Francesca Albanese, tweeted: “As the int'l community braces for potential repercussions, we must work together to keep the flame of accountability burning bright. May this time of darkness see the call for Justice grow stronger.”
She said that, in this “rare moment of euphoria”, she wanted to acknowledge the innumerable victims of too many wars on Gaza “and the indomitable work of Palestinian HR orgs … without whom the hope brought about by the ICC decision today, would have not come”.
After reports came in of more massacres in Gaza, Albanese expressed her concern that there would be a further intensification of violence against the Palestinians. “This was instantaneously my deepest fear as the news of the ICC arrest warrants came in,” she tweeted. “It is noticeable that as of January, at every move at the int'l justice level, there has been an immediate intensification of lethal violence against the Palestinians in Gaza. This also needs to be thoroughly investigated, Prosecutor @KarimKhanQC.”
The public broadcaster NOS quoted the foreign minister of the Netherlands, Casper Veldkamp, as saying that, if Netanyahu came onto Dutch soil, he would be arrested.
The South African government said it welcomed the ICC’s warrants. “These actions mark a significant step towards justice for crimes against humanity and war crimes in Palestine,” the Department of International Relations and Cooperation said.
“South Africa reaffirms its commitment to international law and urges all state parties to act in accordance with their obligations in the Rome Statute.
“We call on the global community to uphold the rule of law and ensure accountability for human rights violations.”
South Africa has taken a separate legal action at the International Court of Justice in which it alleges that Israel has violated the Genocide Convention in Gaza.
Former leader of the Labour Party in the UK Jeremy Corbyn tweeted yesterday (Thursday): “The ICC’s arrest warrants are long overdue. The Prime Minister & Foreign Secretary must immediately endorse this decision. That is the bare minimum. Will the UK government now, finally, honour its international obligations to prevent genocide and end all arms sales to Israel?”
The Canadian prime minister, Justin Trudeau, said Canada would abide by all the regulations and rulings of the international courts.
Spokesman for France’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs Christophe Lemoine said France would act in line with the ICC’s statutes, but he declined to say whether France would arrest Netanyahu if he came to the country. The matter was “legally complex”, he said.
The US president, Joe Biden, said the ICC’s issuance of arrest warrants against Israeli leaders was outrageous.
“Let me be clear once again: whatever the ICC might imply, there is no equivalence – none – between Israel and Hamas,” he said. “We will always stand with Israel against threats to its security.”
The White House spokeswoman, Karine Jean-Pierre, said: “We fundamentally reject the court's decision to issue arrest warrants for senior Israel officials. We remain deeply concerned by the prosecutor’s rush to seek arrest warrants and the troubling process errors that led to this decision.”
US senator Lindsey Graham said that countries who cooperated with the ICC warrants should be sanctioned. “Any nation or organisation that aids or abets this outrage should expect to meet firm resistance from the United States, and I look forward to working with President Trump, his team, and my colleagues in Congress to come up with a powerful response,” he tweeted.
The ICC’s actions against Israel set the foundation for the court to come after the United States one day, Graham said. “We must respond forcefully to the Court for our own good,” he tweeted.
In stark contrast to his latest comments, Graham said in March 2023 that the ICC’s decision to issue an arrest warrant against Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, was “a giant step in the right direction for the international community”. It was “an action of an international evidence-based body that will stand the test of history”, he said.
Senator John Thune said the ICC’s decision to issue warrants against Netanyahu and Gallant was “outrageous, unlawful, and dangerous”.
Senator John Thune said the ICC’s decision was “outrageous, unlawful, and dangerous”.
Israel’s president, Isaac Herzog, tweeted: “This is a dark day for justice. A dark day for humanity. Taken in bad faith, the outrageous decision at the ICC has turned universal justice into a universal laughing stock.”
Journalist Jonathan Cook responded: “No, Israeli President Herzog, the arrest warrants issued by the ICC for Netanyahu and Gallant today are not a ‘dark day for humanity’. They are the first, small ray of light we've had in 13 months of slaughter, ethnic cleansing, genocide.”
Netanyahu described the ICC as antisemitic. “Israel utterly rejects the false and absurd charges of the International Criminal Court, a biased and discriminatory political body,” his office said.
Francesca Albanese tweeted: “Under the leadership of the current @IsraeliPM, Israel has literally made life hell on earth for millions of Palestinians, rendering ‘antisemtic label’ a scorn, which also shamefully belittles real antisemitism. He needs to be arrested not because he is Jewish, but because he appears to be a criminal on multiple counts (and being Christian, Buddhist, Muslim or atheist, would not make him any less arrestable).”
The Palestinian Authority, which governs the occupied West Bank, said the ICC’s decision represented hope and confidence in international law and its institutions. It called on all member states of the ICC and the UN to adhere to the Court’s decision.
Amnesty International said: “The wheels of international justice have finally caught up with those who are alleged to be responsible for war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in Palestine and Israel.
“Today’s arrest warrants represent a historic breakthrough for justice and must signal the beginning of the end of the persistent and pervasive impunity at the heart of the human rights crisis in Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territory.”
There could be no ‘safe haven’ for those alleged to have committed war crimes and crimes against humanity, Amnesty added.
After the ICC announced its decision yesterday, the High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Josep Borrell, posted on X: “These decisions are binding on all states party to the Rome Statute, which includes all EU member states.”
Neither the US nor Israel are party to the Rome Statute.
Ireland, Italy, and Spain are among EU states that have said they would meet their ICC commitments. However, the Hungarian president, Viktor Orbán, described the ICC’s decision as shameful and invited Netanyahu to his country for an official visit, during which he said he would ensure the Israeli prime minister’s “safety and freedom”.
In a letter to Netanyahu, Orbán wrote: “As many times before, my country stands with Israel, and I would like to assure you that Hungary strongly condemns this disgraceful decision ...”.
In Germany, federal government spokesman Steffen Hebestreit said the government was involved in the drafting of the ICC statute and was one of the court’s biggest supporters.
“At the same time, the consequence of German history is that we have unique relationships and a great responsibility with Israel,” he said, adding that the government would examine the matter and comment further if Netanyahu and Gallant planned to visit Germany.
Hebestreit said he found it hard to imagine that Netanyahu and Gallant would be arrested in Germany.
Austria’s Federal Ministry for European and International Affairs issued a statement saying that confirmation of the ICC’s arrest warrants against Netanyahu and Gallant was “incomprehensible”.
The ministry said: “It seems absurd to create equivalence between members of a democratically elected government and the leader of a terrorist organisation ... With all due respect to the independence of the International Criminal Court, this decision does a disservice to international law and damages the credibility of the court.”
The ICC prosecutor, Karim A.A. Khan, applied for the arrest warrants six months ago. His office had also submitted applications for warrants of arrest for Yahya Sinwar, then head of Hamas in the Gaza Strip, and Ismail Haniyeh, former head of the Hamas political bureau, but later withdrew them after their deaths were confirmed.
Khan said yesterday: “Today, our collective mind and focus should be on the victims of international crimes in Israel and in the State of Palestine. In my own meetings with the victims and families of hostages taken from kibbutzim, and with victims from Gaza who have lost so many loved ones, I have underlined that the law is there for all, that its role is to vindicate the rights of all persons.
“The decision of the independent judges of the International Criminal Court affirms that international humanitarian law must be upheld in all circumstances through fair and impartial judicial processes.”
Khan said the applications for arrest warrants were made following an independent investigation, “and on the basis of objective, verifiable evidence vetted through a forensic process”.
This article is also available on my Changing Times website.