Worldwide Felony Courtroom chief prosecutor Karim Khan introduced Monday that he’s searching for arrest warrants towards Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Protection Minister Yoav Galant, in addition to Hamas chief Yahya Sinwar within the Gaza Strip.
He’s additionally searching for warrants towards Hamas navy chief Mohammad Deif and Ismail Haniyeh, the Qatar-based political chief of Hamas.
In an effort to challenge an arrest warrant, ICC judges should conform to Khan’s request, a course of that might take months. Arrests fall on states below treaty with the ICC’s jurisdiction, together with most European nations
Of the 42 arrest warrants issued by the ICC, the company has taken solely 21 suspects into custody. Any ICC arrest warrant towards an Israeli chief is unlikely to be notably efficient, as Israel, together with different states akin to the US, China and Russia, usually are not signatories to the Rome Statute, the treaty that created the ICC. .
Subscribe at this time
Get each day emails in your inbox
Yar Lapid and Benny Gantz, Netanyahu’s primary political rivals, criticized the choice, calling the prosecutor’s request for an arrest warrant “ethical blindness” and a “historic crime”.
Hamas additionally criticized the ICC’s determination, saying it engaged in “armed resistance” and suggesting that the ICC included extra Israeli leaders than the 2 elected. Though Palestine is a signatory to the Rome Statute and thus topic to the ICC, it’s unlikely that this warrant will have an effect on Deif or Sinwar, who’re hiding in Gaza. However this might restrict Haniyeh’s frequent journeys to the Center East from Qatar.
In recent times, the ICC has issued related unenforceable selections. In 2023, it issued a warrant towards Vladimir Putin. Beforehand, it tried to research US troops for doable battle crimes in Afghanistan, which resulted in Trump imposing sanctions towards the then-ICC prosecutor.
