OAN Staff Blake Wolf
11:00 AM – Thursday, November 21, 2024
The International Criminal Court (ICC) released an arrest warrant for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant, Israel’s former defense minister, for “crimes against humanity and war crimes.”
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The ICC’s website states that it “participat[es] in a global fight to end impunity, and through international criminal justice, the Court aims to hold those responsible accountable for their crimes and to help prevent these crimes from happening again.”
The warrants accuse Netanyahu and Gallant of utilizing “starvation as a method of warfare,” through the restriction of humanitarian aid into Gaza, in addition to allegedly intentionally targeting civilians throughout the offensive campaign against Hamas.
However, the court made no mention regarding how Hamas, Hezbollah, and other Islamist groups purposely create headquarters in areas where civilian traffic is heavy, such as underneath hospitals, schools, and other populated areas. The court also didn’t mention how Hamas members and other proxy groups with shared interests seize humanitarian aid and store it for themselves.
“Out of approximately 200 aid trucks that entered Gaza in the last few days, over 170 were reportedly robbed. Residents of Gaza suggest that this systematic theft is a tactic used by Hamas and other to maintain control over the flow of aid,” i24 News reported.
The court further explained their reasoning for the arrest warrants.
“The Chamber found that the alleged conduct of Mr Netanyahu and Mr Gallant concerned the activities of Israeli government bodies and the armed forces against the civilian population in Palestine, more specifically civilians in Gaza. It therefore concerned the relationship between two parties to an international armed conflict, as well as the relationship between an occupying power and the population in occupied territory,” the ICC statement read.
“For these reasons, with regards to war crimes, the Chamber found it appropriate to issue the arrest warrants pursuant to the law of international armed conflict. The Chamber also found that the alleged crimes against humanity were part of a widespread and systematic attack against the civilian population of Gaza,” it continued.
“The Chamber also noted that decisions allowing or increasing humanitarian assistance into Gaza were often conditional. They were not made to fulfill Israel’s obligations under international humanitarian law or to ensure that the civilian population in Gaza would be adequately supplied with goods in need,” it added. “The Chamber found that there are reasonable grounds to believe that the lack of food, water, electricity and fuel, and specific medical supplies, created conditions of life calculated to bring about the destruction of part of the civilian population in Gaza, which resulted in the death of civilians, including children due to malnutrition and dehydration.”
Despite these damning claims, Israeli President Isaac Herzog and others have since condemned the ICC, maintaining that it is ignoring Hamas’ utilization of human shields, in addition to ignoring the October 7th, 2023 terror attacks, which kickstarted the war.
“Taken in bad faith, the outrageous decision at the ICC has turned universal justice into a universal laughingstock. It makes a mockery of the sacrifice of all those who fight for justice – from the Allied victory over the Nazis till today,” Herzog wrote.
“Indeed, the decision has chosen the side of terror and evil over democracy and freedom, and turned the very system of justice into a human shield for Hamas’ crimes against humanity,” he continued. “This cynical exploitation of the international legal institutions reminds us once again of the need for true moral clarity in the face of an Iranian empire of evil that seeks to destabilize our region and the world, and destroy the very institutions of the free world.”
Nevertheless, the court also issued an arrest warrant for Hamas military chief Muhammad Deif for crimes against humanity as well, however, Israel already announced that Deif was previously killed in an airstrike.
The United States and Israel have made several efforts to block the ICC from going through with the arrest warrants, threatening sanctions and arguing that the court has no jurisdiction over Israel. Later, the court responded, stating that the arrest warrants are based on the “territorial jurisdiction of Palestine.”
“If the ICC and its prosecutor do not reverse their outrageous and unlawful actions to pursue arrest warrants against Israeli officials, the Senate should immediately pass sanction legislation, as the House has already done on a bipartisan basis,” wrote U.S. Senate majority leader-elect John Thune.”If Majority Leader Schumer does not act, the Senate Republican majority will stand with our key ally Israel and make this – and other supportive legislation – a top priority in the next Congress.”
The war began with Hamas terrorists slaughtering at least 1,200 Israelis and taking 251 more hostages on October 7th, 2023. According to the Gaza Health Ministry, which is controlled by Hamas, Israel’s retaliatory response has resulted in the death of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians.
However, the Palestinian death toll does not distinguish between innocent civilians and Hamas terrorists, and the health ministry’s death toll numbers have been disputed by Israel.
“Seventy-one percent of all Palestinians supported Hamas’s decision to attack Israel on October 7,” according to a poll highlighted by the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD).
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