Six months ago, chief prosecutor Karim Khan requested the arrest warrants from the ICC for crimes against humanity committed by the Israeli regime in Gaza. This marks the first time in the court's 22-year history that arrest warrants have been issued for Western-allied senior officials.
The Hague-based international criminal court also issued arrest warrants for Mohammed Diab Ibrahim al-Masri, also known as Mohammed Deif, Hamas' military chief, even though Israel claims that Deif was already killed in Gaza by Israeli Defense Forces (IDF).
Israel appealed the original ruling using a jurisdiction argument, only to have it rejected by the ICC's Pre-Trial Chamber I, a three-judge panel. While the panel classified the arrest warrants as "secret," it decided to release them anyway because "conduct similar to that addressed in the warrant of arrest appears to be ongoing."
"Moreover, the chamber considers it to be in the interest of victims and their families that they are made aware of the warrants' existence," the chamber further said.
(Related: Did you know that most American "news" is written by Israeli lobbyists pushing a Zionist agenda?)
Lawyer representing Palestinian victims calls warrants "a historic decision"
While the arrest warrants may not ever lead to any actual arrests, their issuance is still considered a victory by Triestino Mariniello, a lawyer representing Palestinian victims at the ICC. Mariniello called the warrants "a historic decision," adding that the ICC has had to endure "pressure and threats of sanctions" from the U.S. government, and yet still followed through.
"That's an important step for its legitimacy and credibility," Mariniello said. "It's important for Palestinian victims. It's a history day for anyone who believes in justice for every victim independently of the power of the culprits."
Prof. Leila Nadya Sadat, a former ICC special adviser on crimes against humanity, likewise welcomed the decision as one that she says is long overdue.
"The referral dates back several years already, with new State referrals having been added over the course of the past year, and it was important for the Prosecutor to investigate and for the Court to issue the warrants if the evidence supported them," said Sadat, who teachers international criminal law at the Washington University School of Law.
It was officially announced back on May 20 that Khan's office had filed an application for arrest warrants. A couple months after that, Ismail Haniyeh, the head of Hamas' political wing, was assassinated. Then Israel claimed it killed Deif, though Hamas denies this.
Haniyeh's arrest warrant was subsequently withdrawn while Yahya Sinwar, his successor, was killed in Gaza, his death having been confirmed by Hamas.
"It is deeply unfortunate that two of the Hamas indictees were executed by Israel rather than turned over to the Court, depriving victims of the possibility of seeing them tried for the acts of 7 October," Sadat further said.
"It is appropriate, in my view, that the warrants targeted the Prime Minister and the Defense Minister of Israel, as opposed to individuals of lower rank, given the scale of the crimes alleged to have been committed, and the significant death and injury tolls arising from them, as well as the ongoing humanitarian crisis and impending starvation."
UN special rapporteur on Palestine Francesca Albanese would now like to see the ICC issue even more arrest warrants for additional Israeli soldiers involved in the genocide. There are "reasonable grounds," according to the ICC judge, to pursue the arrests of many Israeli soldiers for violating international humanitarian law as stipulated in the 1949 Geneva Conventions, to which both Israel and Palestine are parties.
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