By Mayank Chhaya-
In seeking arrest warrants against Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and four others, including his Defense Minister Yoav Gallant as well as three top leaders of the Islamic terrorist group Hamas, an International Criminal Court’s (ICC) prosecutor has unleashed extraordinary geopolitical challenges.
ICC prosecutor Karim Khan has submitted the applications for the arrest warrants and it is up to the judges whether to grant them. There are expectations they would be granted.
Apart from Netanyahu and Gallant on the Israeli side, Khan has also sought arrest warrants against Yahya Sinwar, Hamas chief in the Gaza Strip, Mohammed Diab Ibrahim Al-Mastri, Commander-in-Chief of the military wing of Hamas, known as the Al-Qassam Brigades and, Ismail Haniyeh, head of Hamas Political Bureau.
Khan said the three Hamas leaders bear criminal responsibility for crimes against humanity including extermination, murder, rape, torture and sexual violence.
“My Office submits that the war crimes alleged in these applications were committed in the context of an international armed conflict between Israel and Palestine, and a non-international armed conflict between Israel and Hamas running in parallel. We submit that the crimes against humanity charged were part of a widespread and systematic attack against the civilian population of Israel by Hamas and other armed groups pursuant to organizational policies. Some of these crimes, in our assessment, continue to this day,” Khan said today.
He also said there are reasonable grounds to believe that the three leaders are criminally responsible for the killing of hundreds of Israeli civilians in attacks perpetrated by Hamas and other armed groups on 7 October 2023 and the taking of at least 245 hostages.
The request for warrants against Netanyahu and Gallant is equally damning. Khan cited Articles 25 and 28 of the Rome Statute to say “the war crimes alleged in these applications were committed in the context of an international armed conflict between Israel and Palestine, and a non-international armed conflict between Israel and Hamas (together with other Palestinian Armed Groups) running in parallel. We submit that the crimes against humanity charged were committed as part of a widespread and systematic attack against the Palestinian civilian population pursuant to State policy. These crimes, in our assessment, continue to this day.”
As part of his war crimes allegations, Khan listed “starvation of civilians as a method of warfare, willfully causing great suffering, or serious injury to body or health, intentionally directing attacks against a civilian population, extermination and/or murder and persecution.”
The ICC prosecutor has set in motion a process which will have a profound effect on the Middle East generally and the Israel-Palestine dynamic particularly. Even though such ICC warrants, if approved by its judges, are a long-drawn-out affair, which often get mired in and delayed by global realpolitik, they will be like hanging swords for the five men so seriously charged.
Even the potential that the five, particularly Netanyahu could be arrested is a greatly consequential move.
Netanyahu and cannot visit 124 countries, which are signatories to the ICC, without facing the prospects of being arrested once the warrants are issued. Israel and the U.S. do not recognize the ICC. India too does not recognize the ICC along with Russia and China and many others.
Unlike Netanyahu who has both national and international obligations and would find the warrants profoundly inhibiting in his work, Sinwar and the two other Hamas leaders may remain relatively unaffected because of the kind of life beyond the pale that they lead. In any case their movements outside the regions are now severely curbed because they also face potential death at the hands of Israeli intelligence.
[Caption: ICC prosecutor Karim Khan (Photo: ICC)]
