On May 20, ICC Prosecutor Karim Khan requested arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defence Minister Yoav Gallant as well as senior Hamas officials on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity.
The International Criminal Court (ICC) has accepted the requests of more than 60 states, organizations and individuals to intervene in Prosecutor Karim Khan’s application to issue arrest warrants for top Israeli and Hamas officials, reportedly slowing down the process on the matter.
This means that “an ICC decision to grant or reject the arrest warrants will be significantly delayed, likely by several months,” according to The Times of Israel.
The US, Germany, Palestine, Norway, Ireland, Czech Republic, Ireland, Spain, Brazil, Argentina, South Africa, Bangladesh, Bolivia, Colombia, Chile and Mexico (jointly), Union of Comoros, Democratic Republic of Congo and Djibouti were among the states whose filings were accepted.
Efforts Underway to Issue ICC Arrest Warrants for Netanyahu, Sinwar – Developing Story
Requests from the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), the Arab League and pro-Israeli figures such as US Senator Lindsey Graham have also been accepted, reported the Anadolu news agency.
Written submissions are to be filed by August 6, according to court documents made public on Tuesday.
Request Denounced
On May 20, ICC Prosecutor Karim Khan requested arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defence Minister Yoav Gallant on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity in its ongoing genocidal assault on the Gaza Strip. Arrest warrants have also been requested against senior Hamas officials, including Yahya Sinwar and Ismail Haniyeh.
Hamas said in a statement following the news that the arrest warrants against “the occupation leaders came seven months late” during which Israel had committed “thousands of crimes against Palestinian civilians.”
ICC Arrest Warrants for Israeli, Hamas Leaders- Global Reaction
The movement said it “strongly denounces the attempts of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court to equate the victim with the executioner by issuing arrest warrants against a number of Palestinian resistance leaders, without a legal basis.”
Netanyahu had called Khan’s decision “outrageous” and “a moral outrage of historic proportions.”
Over 39,000 Killed
Flouting a UN Security Council resolution demanding an immediate ceasefire, Israel has faced international condemnation amid its continued brutal offensive on Gaza.
Currently on trial before the International Court of Justice for genocide against Palestinians, Israel has been waging a devastating war on Gaza since October 7.
According to Gaza’s Ministry of Health, 39,145 Palestinians have been killed, and 90,257 wounded in Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza starting on October 7.
Moreover, at least 11,000 people are unaccounted for, presumed dead under the rubble of their homes throughout the Strip.
Israel says that 1,200 soldiers and civilians were killed during the Al-Aqsa Flood Operation on October 7. Israeli media published reports suggesting that many Israelis were killed on that day by ‘friendly fire’.
Palestinian and international organizations say that the majority of those killed and wounded are women and children.
The Israeli war has resulted in an acute famine, mostly in northern Gaza, resulting in the death of many Palestinians, mostly children.
The Israeli aggression has also resulted in the forceful displacement of nearly two million people from all over the Gaza Strip, with the vast majority of the displaced forced into the densely crowded southern city of Rafah near the border with Egypt – in what has become Palestine’s largest mass exodus since the 1948 Nakba.
Later in the war, hundreds of thousands of Palestinians began moving from the south to central Gaza in a constant search for safety.
(The Palestine Chronicle)
They are impotent.