ICC Prosecutor Seeks Arrest Of Israeli, Hamas Leaders For War Crimes

The chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC), Karim Khan KC, has formally requested arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the leader of Hamas in Gaza on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity.

The charges stemmed from incidents that occurred from at least October 7, 2023.

Alongside Netanyahu, Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant and Hamas’s political leader Ismail Haniyeh, as well as Hamas’s military chief Mohammed Deif, were also named in the request for arrest.

The ICC, headquartered in The Hague, has been conducting an investigation into Israel’s actions in the occupied territories over the past three years, recently extending its scrutiny to include actions by Hamas.

Netanyahu, however, condemned the ICC’s move, describing it as “an outrage of historic proportions.”

Israeli war cabinet minister Benny Gantz, despite being a political rival of Netanyahu, also criticised the decision. He stated, “Drawing parallels between the leaders of a democratic country determined to defend itself from despicable terror to leaders of a blood-thirsty terror organization is a deep distortion of justice and blatant moral bankruptcy,” in a post on X.

The issuance of arrest warrants by the ICC can take varying amounts of time, sometimes spanning weeks or even months from the initial request to judicial approval.