"The international community must finally step up and hold all parties accountable for their atrocities."
This statement was originally published on cihrs.org on 21 November 2024.
CIHRS welcomes the decision of the International Criminal Court (ICC) to issue arrest warrants against the Prime Minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu and the Previous Minister of Defense of Israel, Yoav Gallant, as well as the head of Hamas’ military wing, Mohammad Diab Ibrahim Al-Masri (‘Deif’), in the context of war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in Israel and Palestine from at least 7 October 2023. As Israel continues to deliberately turn Gaza into uninhabitable land, indiscriminately killing civilians and targeting crucial infrastructure for survival, the ICC’s decision to bring key officials to justice should be a warning for Israel and states supportive of its policies to comply with their international obligations.
“Although the ICC’s decision to issue arrest warrants against key Israel and Hamas officials is a significant step towards accountability for heinous crimes that have been ongoing for over a year, the effectiveness of the Court’s arrest warrants requires other states to uphold their role in surrendering the wanted officials. The international community must finally step up and hold all parties accountable for their atrocities”, says Amna Guellali, Research Director at the Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies.
Israel must allow full access to the Gaza Strip and other affected areas to the Prosecutor’s office of the ICC in order to establish the factual record of the actions of all parties that have facilitated or committed grave international crimes since 7 October, 2023, plausibly including the crime of genocide.
On 21 November 2024, the Pre-Trial Chamber I of the International Criminal Court unanimously issued warrants of arrest for Israel and Hamas officials. The Chamber issued two warrants of arrest for Israel’s Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and Israel’s Previous Minister of Defense, Yoav Gallant, for crimes against humanity and war crimes committed from at least 8 October 2023 until at least 20 May 2024, the day the ICC Prosecution filed the applications for the warrants. The Chamber found that Netanyahu and Gallant each bear criminal responsibility as co-perpetrators for the war crime of starvation as a method of warfare and the crimes against humanity of murder, persecution, and other inhumane acts. The Chamber also issued a warrant of arrest for the head of the military wing of Hamas, Mohammad Diab Ibrahim Al-Masri ‘Deif’ for alleged crimes against humanity and war crimes committed in Israel on 7 October 2023, after being unable to verify whether he remains alive.
The ICC prosecutor had also requested arrest warrants for key Hamas officials, Yahya Sinwar and Ismail Haniyeh, both of whom have been killed by Israel since the Prosecutor’s application for their arrest warrants.
The Chamber found reasonable grounds to believe that through their impediment of humanitarian aid and their failure to facilitate relief, Netanyahu and Gallant have ‘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, in this timeframe.
On 7 October, Hamas carried out coordinated mass killings in various separate locations in Israel in which over 1,200 people were killed and 5,400 were injured. Hamas also abducted over 200 people from Israel to Gaza – including children and elderly people – of whom an estimated 101 hostages still remain in Gaza. Since then, Israel has been directing widespread indiscriminate and disproportionate attacks against the civilian population in Gaza and civilian infrastructure, including hospitals and camps for internally displaced persons. By 19 November 2024, Israeli forces had killed almost 44,000 Palestinians – at least 30 percent of whom are children – and injured over 104,000, according to the Ministry of Health in Gaza. At least 1.9 million people in Gaza have been displaced and around 79 percent of the Gaza Strip is under evacuation orders. Israel continues to impede access to humanitarian aid and essential resources, which has degraded living conditions in Gaza to horrifying levels, with over 800,000 people facing emergency levels of food insecurity and 345,000 people facing catastrophic levels. On 14 November 2024, the UN Special Committee found that Israel’s warfare methods in Gaza were consistent with genocide and included starvation as a weapon of war.
CIHRS reiterates its calls for an urgent adoption of an immediate and permanent ceasefire in Gaza, and arms embargo on Israel as well as prompt expansion of humanitarian aid provision to ensure that the basic needs of Palestinians in Gaza are met. In the aftermath of the ICC prosecutor’s request for arrest warrants in May 2024, Israel and its backers have made threats of retaliation against the ICC. In the United States, members of both houses of Congress made inflammatory statements against the ICC and its Prosecutor. In June, its House of Representatives passed a bill to impose sanctions against the ICC. Such retaliatory actions and threats undermine the international justice system as a whole and are a violation of international law norms. Israel and supporters of its policies must immediately cease any attempts to curtail support to the court or to obstruct or hamper its work for seeking international justice and accountability, and must facilitate the implementation of its decision to issue arrest warrants against Israeli and Hamas officials.
“With every day that justice is delayed, the civilians of Gaza face unfathomable death and devastation,” Guellali added. “The international community must stand resolute against any attempts to undermine the ICC. Retaliatory threats, like those made by supporters of Israel’s policies, particularly the United States, violate international norms and send a dangerous message that international law can be trampled upon without consequence.”
Background
In March 2021, the ICC Prosecutor opened an investigation into the situation in Palestine following a referral by the State of Palestine specifically requesting the Prosecutor to investigate past, ongoing and future crimes within the ICC’s jurisdiction committed in any part of the State of Palestine. In February 2021, the ICC Pre-Trial Chamber I had established that the Court can exercise its criminal jurisdiction in the Situation in the State of Palestine and that the territorial scope of this jurisdiction extends to Gaza and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem. This mandate includes crimes committed by nationals of State Parties to the ICC and nationals of non-State Parties on the territory of a State Party, such as the case of crimes committed by Israel on Palestinian territories.
