The International Criminal Court announced Monday that it is seeking arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar on war crime charges.
The charges are tied to the deadly Oct. 7 terror attacks on Israel and the subsequent war in Gaza, the court’s chief prosecutor, Karim Khan, said in a statement on Monday.
Warrants are also being sought for Israel’s Defense Minister Yoav Gallant and two top Hamas leaders.
The charges against the Hamas terror chiefs include extermination, murder, torture, rape and taking hostages, all as war crimes and crimes against humanity.
Israel is accused of “wilful killing,” “starvation of civilians as a method of warfare” and “wilfully causing great suffering.”
“My office submits that the war crimes alleged in these applications were committed in the context of an international armed conflict between Israel and Palestine, and a non-international armed conflict between Israel and Hamas (together with other Palestinian Armed Groups) running in parallel,” the prosecutor said.
Of the Hamas bloodshed on Oct. 7, Khan said he saw for himself the “devastating scenes of these attacks and the profound impact of the unconscionable crimes.”
“Speaking with survivors, I heard how the love within a family, the deepest bonds between a parent and a child, were contorted to inflict unfathomable pain through calculated cruelty and extreme callousness. These acts demand accountability,” he said.
The ICC, which is based in the the Hague in the Netherlands, can charge individuals with war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide.
Israel isn’t a member of the ICC and disputes its jurisdiction.
A panel of ICC judges will now weigh the prosecutors’ applications for the warrants.
“Israel, like all States, has a right to take action to defend its population. That right, however, does not absolve Israel or any State of its obligation to comply with international humanitarian law,” Khan said.
“Notwithstanding any military goals they may have, the means Israel chose to achieve them in Gaza – namely, intentionally causing death, starvation, great suffering, and serious injury to body or health of the civilian population – are criminal.”
It comes just weeks after Israel’s Foreign Ministry warned the ICC would likely issue the warrants against the Jewish nation’s top leaders.
At the time, Netanyahu described the looming charges as a scandal on a historic scale.
“The possibility that they will issue arrest warrants for war crimes against IDF commanders and state leaders, this possibility is a scandal on a historic scale,” Netanyahu said in a video statement.
The Israeli leader hasn’t commented publicly on the arrest warrants being sought.
