The International Criminal Court in The Hague, Netherlands, has handed arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant, his former defense minister, for what it said were war crimes and crimes against humanity during Israel’s war in the Gaza Strip against Palestinian Hamas militants.
The warrant marked the first time that a sitting leader of a major U.S. ally has been accused of war crimes and crimes against humanity by the international tribunal. The court said Thursday it found “reasonable grounds” to believe that Mr. Netanyahu and Mr. Gallant were criminally responsible for employing the war crime of starvation along with “murder, persecution and other inhumane acts.”
“The chamber also found reasonable grounds to believe that Mr. Netanyahu and Mr. Gallant each bear criminal responsibility as civilian superiors for the war crime of intentionally directing an attack against the civilian population,” ICC officials said in a statement.
The court accused Israel of “intentionally and knowingly” depriving Palestinians in Gaza of food, water, medical supplies and electricity in violation of the country’s responsibility under international law.
The move brought angry reactions from both Israel and from the Jewish state’s supporters on Capitol Hill.
Mr. Netanyahu and Mr. Gallant — who recently resigned his post because of personal and policy differences with the prime minister — slammed the global court’s move, saying Israel was the victim in a war the Palestinians started and refuse to quit.
Israel “rejects with disgust the absurd and false actions” by the court, Mr. Netanyahu said in a statement released by his office. “There is nothing more just than the war that Israel has been waging in Gaza.”
Mr. Gallant, in a separate statement, said the decision “sets a dangerous precedent against the right to self-defense and moral warfare and encourages murderous terrorism.”
The ICC arrest warrants against Mr. Netanyahu and Mr. Gallant are a step toward holding Israel’s government accountable for its actions inside Gaza, said officials with IfNotNow, a group of left-wing American Jews opposing what it calls Israel’s apartheid system against Palestinians.
“This won’t bring back the likely hundreds of thousands of Palestinians killed by the Israeli military over the last 13 months or the over 1,100 Israelis killed in the Hamas-led attack on Oct. 7, but we hope it may bring a measure of justice and enable the world to avert catastrophes like this again,” the group said in a statement. “Political leaders in the U.S. should support the ICC’s efforts instead of threatening, sanctioning and delegitimizing the court.”
International human rights groups, critical of the high civilian casualty rates in Gaza and the difficulties encountered getting international aid into the area, also lauded the ICC decision, which also called for the arrest of a senior Hamas military leader as well.
The warrants against both sides “break through the perception that certain individuals are beyond the reach of the law,” the associate international justice director at Human Rights Watch, Balkees Jarrah, said in a statement.
Israel and the U.S. aren’t members of the ICC, so there’s little chance Mr. Netanyahu and Mr. Gallant would be arrested at home or in America, but they could be subject to arrest in any of the 124 countries that are members.
Sen. Lindsey Graham, South Carolina Republican, called the ICC a “dangerous joke” and said the time has come for lawmakers in the U.S. to formally sanction “this irresponsible body.”
Karim Khan, the ICC’s chief prosecutor, is the subject of an internal investigation over allegations of sexual misconduct, which he has denied.
“The ‘International Corrupt Criminal Court’ has acted in the most absurd and irresponsible manner possible by issuing arrest warrants against the prime minister and former defense minister of Israel while there is a serious cloud of allegations hanging over the prosecutor who sought these warrants,” Mr. Graham said in a statement.
He accused the ICC of defying every concept of fundamental fairness and legitimizing the actions of a “corrupt prosecutor.”
“Calling for an independent investigation of the prosecutor’s misconduct one day and issuing a warrant based on his work product the next day is an affront to any sense of fairness and the rule of law,” Sen. Graham said.
The case at the ICC is separate from another legal battle Israel is waging at the top U.N. court, the International Court of Justice, in which South Africa accuses Israel of genocide in the Gaza war, an allegation Israeli leaders staunchly deny.
— This article was based in part on wire service reports.
• Mike Glenn can be reached at mglenn@washingtontimes.com.
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