On Thursday, the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Hamas military chief Mohammed Deif, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity.
The Israeli military’s year-long attack on the Palestinian enclave has killed 44,000 people, according to local health experts, and the ICC charged Netanyahu and Gallant of a series of human rights violations in the Gaza Strip.
The warrants sparked a fierce response from Israel, with Netanyahu’s office denouncing the ICC as a “biased and discriminatory political body,” calling the decision “antisemitic,” and dismissing the claims as “absurd and false.”
The court’s ruling “remains limited and symbolic if it is not supported by all countries around the world to implement it,” according to senior political official Basem Naim, while Hamas hailed the warrants as a “important step towards justice.”
Since the ICC lacks police to carry out its warrants, neither Israel nor the US acknowledge its jurisdiction. However, the warrants do expose Israeli officials to arrest in other nations, including a large portion of Europe.
The ICC dismissed Israel’s arguments to its jurisdiction in its announcement on Thursday. According to the statement, the warrants for Netanyahu and Gallant were issued in connection with “crimes against humanity and war crimes committed from at least 8 October, 2023 until at least 20 May, 2024,” which included “the war crime of starvation as a method of warfare; and the crimes against humanity of murder, persecution, and other inhumane acts.”
Additionally, it stated that there was valid reason to suspect them of being “civilian superiors” who committed the war crime of “intentionally directing an attack against the civilian population.”
Netanyahu and Gallant were charged with having “intentionally and knowingly deprived the civilian population in Gaza of objects indispensable to their survival, including food, water, and medicine and medical supplies, as well as fuel and electricity.”
According to the ICC, it also discovered that their actions had made it more difficult for aid agencies to deliver food and other necessities to the enclave’s most vulnerable residents.
The State Department and Gallant’s office have been contacted by NBC News for comment.
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