The chief prosecutor at the International Criminal Court (ICC) has announced he is seeking arrest warrants for the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, as well as several Hamas leaders over alleged war crimes.
ICC prosecutor Karim Khan KC issued a statement yesterday proposing that arrest warrants are issued for Mr Netanyahu, Israel’s defence minister Yoav Gallant, Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, Mohammed al-Masri (also known as Mohammed Deif), Hamas’s military chief, and Ismail Haniyeh, Hamas’s political leader.
It marks the first time in ICC history that a sitting head of state and a sitting defence minister of a country supported by other powerful Western states, including the UK and US, face arrest warrants, international law experts have told The Independent. The move comes after weeks of Israel’s staunchest allies calling for restraint in its war in Gaza, particularly around the invasion of the southern Gaza city of Rafah, where more than a million Palestinians fled to avoid being caught up in the earlier stages of Israel’s attacks.
The charges against Mr Netanyahu and Mr Gallant, two of the three core members of Israel’s war cabinet, include “starvation of civilians as a method of warfare … intentionally directing attacks against a civilian population … wilfully causing great suffering … persecution as a crime against humanity … [and] extermination and/or murder.”
A panel of ICC judges will now consider Mr Khan’s application for the arrest warrants.
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