Important Takeaways:
- The International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants Thursday for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, as well as Hamas military chief Mohammed Deif, over alleged crimes against humanity and war crimes.
- The ICC accused Netanyahu and Gallant of a string of human rights abuses in the Gaza Strip, where local health officials said the death toll from the Israeli military’s yearlong assault on the Palestinian enclave had now passed 44,000.
- Israel responded furiously to the warrants, with Netanyahu’s office branding the decision “antisemitic,” rejecting the charges as “absurd and false” and condemning the ICC as a “biased and discriminatory political body.”
- Hamas welcomed the warrants as an “important step towards justice”…
- Both Israel and the United States do not recognize the jurisdiction of the ICC, which has no police to enforce its warrants. But the warrants do put the Israeli officials at risk of arrest in other countries, including much of Europe.
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Important Takeaways:
- The International Criminal Court intends to issue arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant on charges of crimes against humanity for Israel’s conduct in the Gaza war, its Chief Prosecutor Karim Khan announced Monday, on the 227th day of the Gaza war.
- “Today, my Office seeks to charge two of those most responsible, Netanyahu and Gallant, both as co-perpetrators and as superiors pursuant to Articles 25 and 28 of the Rome Statute,” Khan stated.
- Khan first spoke of the warrants in an interview with CNN’s Christiane Amanpour and then published a video and text statement from the court.
- Netanyahu and Gallant would face accusations of starvation of civilians as a method of warfare, willfully causing great suffering or serious injury to body or health, and willful killing.
- Khan’s statement comes as Israel is in its seventh month of an existential war against Hamas, which led an invasion of the Jewish state’s southern border on October 7, killing over 1,200 people and seizing 252 as hostage, out of which 128 remain in captivity.
- Israel has argued that its actions fell within the boundary of International law, stressing that there is no famine in Gaza.
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