ICC prosecutor seeks arrest warrants for Israeli PM and Hamas officials for war crimes

The chief prosecutor of the international criminal court has said he is seeking arrest warrants for senior Hamas and Israeli officials for war crimes and crimes against humanity, including the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and his defence minister, Yoav Gallant.

Karim Khan said his office has applied to the world court’s pre-trial chamber for arrest warrants for the military and political leaders on both sides for crimes committed during Hamas’s 7 October attack and the ensuing war in Gaza.

He named Yahya Sinwar, the Hamas chief in the Gaza Strip, and Mohammed Deif, the commander of its military wing, considered to be the masterminds of the 7 October assault, as well as Ismail Haniyeh, the leader of the group’s political bureau, who is based in Qatar, as wanted for crimes of extermination, murder, hostage taking, rape, sexual assault and torture.

“The world was shocked on 7 October when people were ripped from their homes, from their bedrooms in different kibbutzim … people have suffered enormously,” Khan told CNN on Monday. “We have a variety of evidence to support the applications we’ve submitted to the judges.”

Netanyahu and Gallant are accused of extermination, causing starvation as a method of war, the denial of humanitarian relief supplies and deliberately targeting civilians.

“These acts demand accountability,” Khan’s office said in a statement.

The ICC has previously issued warrants for the Russia’s Vladimir Putin, Muammar Gaddafi of Libya, and the Ugandan warlord Joseph Kony, but no leader of a “western-style” democracy has ever been issued a warrant before.

TheICC decided in 2021 that it had a mandate to investigate violence and war crimes committed by Israel and Palestinian factions in events dating back to 2014, although Israel is not a member of the court and does not recognise its authority.

Khan visited the Egyptian side of the Rafah border crossing into Gaza in late October, and Israel and the West Bank in December, and had made clear that his investigation would include 7 October and its aftermath.

Israel’s establishment, and much of the public, have long maintained that the UN and associated bodies are biased against the Jewish state.

Earlier this month, Netanyahu appeared to be publicly panic-stricken by the prospect of an ICC prosecution, and reportedly appealed to his ally Joe Biden, the US president, to intervene in any potential legal action against Israel.

Any ICC warrants could put Israeli officials at risk of arrest in other countries, further deepening the country’s growing international isolation over its conduct in the war in Gaza. About 1,200 people, mostly civilians, were killed on 7 October, and about 35,000 people have been killed in the war in Gaza, according to the Palestinian health ministry, which does not differentiate between civilian and combatant deaths.

Israel is also facing a South African case in theinternational court of justice accusing Israel of genocide. Israel denies those charges.

The prosecutor must request the warrants from a pre-trial panel of three judges, who take on average two months to consider the evidence and determine if the proceedings can move forward.

Benny Gantz, a former military chief and member of Israel’s war cabinet with Netanyahu and Gallant, criticised Khan’s announcement, saying Israel fights with “one of the strictest” moral codes and has a robust judiciary capable of investigating itself”.