ICC seeks arrest warrants against Sinwar and Netanyahu for war crimes over October 7 attack and Gaza war

CNN
 — 

The International Criminal Court is looking for arrest warrants for Hamas chief in Gaza Yahya Sinwar and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on fees of war crimes and crimes against humanity over the October 7 assaults on Israel and the next war in Gaza, the court docket’s prosecutor Karim Khan informed CNN’s Christiane Amanpour in an unique interview on Monday.

Khan mentioned the ICC’s prosecution crew can also be looking for warrants for Israel’s Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, in addition to two different prime Hamas leaders — Mohammed Diab Ibrahim al-Masri, the chief of the Al Qassem Brigades who’s higher often known as Mohammed Deif, and Ismail Haniyeh, Hamas’ political chief.

The warrants against the Israeli politicians mark the primary time the ICC has focused the highest chief of a detailed ally of the United States. The choice places Netanyahu within the firm of the Russian President Vladimir Putin, for whom the ICC issued an arrest warrant over Moscow’s war on Ukraine, and the Libyan strongman Moammar Gadhafi, who was dealing with an arrest warrant from the ICC for alleged crimes against humanity on the time of his seize and killing in October 2011.

By making use of for the arrest warrants against Israeli and Hamas leaders in the identical motion, Khan’s workplace dangers attracting criticism that it locations a terror group and an elected authorities on an equal footing.

A panel of ICC judges will now think about Khan’s utility for the arrest warrants.

Khan mentioned the costs against Sinwar, Haniyeh and al-Masri embody “extermination, murder, taking of hostages, rape and sexual assault in detention.”

“The world was shocked on the 7th of October when people were ripped from their bedrooms, from their homes, from the different kibbutzim in Israel,” Khan informed Amanpour, including that “people have suffered enormously.”

Hamas-led militants killed round 1,200 folks throughout a number of areas in southern Israel on October 7 and took some 250 hostages into Gaza. Many of the hostages are nonetheless being held in Gaza – Khan informed Amanpour this meant crimes continued to be dedicated against “so many innocent Israelis … that are held hostage by Hamas and families that are waiting for their return.”

Khan informed Amanpour his crew has a “variety of evidence” to assist the appliance for arrest warrants against Sinwar, Haniyeh and al-Masri, together with authenticated video footage and images from the assaults in addition to proof from eyewitnesses and survivors.

Khan mentioned Israel had “every right and indeed an obligation to get hostages back, but you must do so by complying with the law.”

Responding to the announcement by Khan, Hamas mentioned in a press release that it “strongly condemns the attempts of the ICC Prosecutor to equate victims with aggressors by issuing arrest warrants against a number of Palestinian resistance leaders without legal basis.”

‘Nobody is above the law’

The fees against Netanyahu and Gallant embody “causing extermination, causing starvation as a method of war, including the denial of humanitarian relief supplies, deliberately targeting civilians in conflict,” Khan informed Amanpour.

“The fact that Hamas fighters need water doesn’t justify denying water from all the civilian population of Gaza,” he added.

More than 35,500 Palestinians have been killed and greater than 79,000 wounded in Gaza since October 7, the Ministry of Health in Gaza mentioned on Monday. CNN can’t independently confirm the figures.

Netanyahu known as the choice “a political outrage.”

“They will not deter us and we will continue in the war until the hostages are released and Hamas is destroyed,” he mentioned at a gathering of the parliamentary group of his Likud celebration.

Other Israeli officers echoed his sentiments. Benny Gantz, a member Israel’s war cupboard, criticized Khan’s choice instantly after it was introduced, saying that Israel was combating “with one of the strictest moral codes in history, while complying with international law and boasting a robust independent judiciary.”

“Drawing parallels between the leaders of a democratic country determined to defend itself from despicable terror to leaders of a blood-thirsty terror organisation is a deep distortion of justice and blatant moral bankruptcy,” he mentioned, including that the choice by the prosecutors “is in itself a crime of historic proportion to be remembered for generation.”

The chief of the opposition, Yair Lapid, mentioned the appliance for the arrest warrents was “a complete moral failure.”

“We cannot accept the outrageous comparison between Netanyahu and Sinwar … We will not remain silent,” he mentioned.

Israel’s President Isaac Herzog known as it “beyond outrageous.”

When reviews surfaced final month that the ICC chief prosecutor was contemplating this plan of action, Netanyahu said that any ICC arrest warrants against senior Israeli authorities and navy officers “would be an outrage of historic proportions,” and that Israel “has an independent legal system that rigorously investigates all violations of the law.”

Asked by Amanpour concerning the feedback made by Netanyahu, Khan mentioned: “Nobody is above the law.”

He mentioned that if Israel disagrees with the ICC, “they are free, notwithstanding their objections to jurisdiction, to raise a challenge before the judges of the court and that’s what I advise them to do.”

Israel and the United States are usually not members of the ICC. However, the ICC claims to have jurisdiction over Gaza, East Jerusalem and the West Bank after Palestinian leaders formally agreed to be sure by the court docket’s founding rules in 2015.

The ICC announcement on Monday is separate from the case that’s at the moment being heard by the the International Court of Justice (ICJ) over an accusation from South Africa that Israel was committing genocide in its war against Hamas following the October 7 assaults.

While the ICJ considers circumstances that contain nations and nations, and the ICC is a prison court docket, which brings circumstances against people for war crimes or crimes against humanity.

Monday’s announcement is just not the primary time that the ICC acted in relation to Israel. In March 2021, Khan’s workplace launched an investigation into attainable crimes dedicated within the Palestinian territories since June 2014 in Gaza and the West Bank.

Located in The Hague, Netherlands, and created by a treaty known as the Rome Statute first introduced earlier than the United Nations, the ICC operates independently. Most nations – 124 of them – are events to the treaty, however there are notable exceptions, together with Israel, the US and Russia.

That implies that if the court docket grants Khan’s utility and points arrest warrants for the 5 males, any nation that could be a member must arrest them and extradite them to The Hague.

Under the foundations of the court docket, all signatories of the Rome Statute have the duty to cooperate absolutely with its selections. This would make it extraordinarily tough for Netanyahu and Gallant to journey internationally, together with to many nations which might be amongst Israel’s closest allies – together with Germany and the United Kingdom.

Sinwar, Haniyeh and al-Masri have been formally designated as world terrorists by the US, which means they’re below journey bans, asset freezes and sanctions. The US, the UK, Japan, Canada in addition to the European Union and others have designated Hamas as a terror group and imposed sanctions on its leaders.

This story has been up to date with extra developments.