THE CASE FOR TRYING HAMAS AS WAR CRIMINALS

There's more than enough evidence for the International Court to prosecute those behind the attack on Israel, these legal scholars say

- AVI BELL and AVRAHAM RUSSELL SHALEV

OCTOBER 7, 2023, WAS THE BLOODIEST day in Israeli history. As the world now knows, in the early hours that morning, during a Jewish holiday, more than a thousand Hamas terrorists invaded Israel from Gaza, aiming to massacre as many people as possible. By the end of the day, they had murdered at least 1,300 Israelis, wounded thousands more and taken about 150 men, women and children as hostages, all with unspeakable savagery.

One of the world's deadliest terrorist attacks ever, the Hamas assault was also the largest slaughter of Jews since the end of the Holocaust. President Joe Biden, like many world leaders, denounced Hamas' acts as "pure, unadulterated evil," but the international response cannot be limited to words alone.

The massacre by Hamas presents the International Criminal Court with a golden opportunity to restore its own flagging reputation by promptly indicting the Palestinian officials and terrorists responsible for the horrific crimes of October 7. The ICC was originally established to prosecute the worst war crimes and crimes against humanity, but two decades of ineffectiveness, professional lapses, political bias and misplaced priorities have frittered away the Court's goodwill with the public. This is a chance for the Court to switch to the right side of the fight for justice.