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The International Criminal Court prosecutor, Karim Khan, said Monday that he had requested arrest warrants for the leaders of Hamas and for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel for war crimes and crimes against humanity in relation to the Oct. 7 attack and the war in Gaza.
In a statement, Mr. Khan said he was applying for arrest warrants for Yahya Sinwar, Hamas’s leader within Gaza; Muhammad Deif, Hamas’s military leader; and Ismail Haniyeh, the movement’s Qatar-based political leader. Mr. Khan also said he was requesting warrants for Mr. Netanyahu and for Israel’s defense minister, Yoav Gallant.
While Mr. Khan’s request must still be approved by judges from the court, the announcement forms one of the harshest rebukes of Israel’s strategy in its seven-month campaign against Hamas and the war’s toll on Gaza’s civilian population. It also heightens scrutiny of Hamas’s actions at the start of the war in October, when Hamas fighters led a raid that killed more than a thousand people and abducted hundreds more.
“Today we once again underline that international law and the laws of armed conflict apply to all,” Mr. Khan said in his statement. “No foot soldier, no commander, no civilian leader — no one — can act with impunity.”
There was no immediate response from Mr. Netanyahu or Mr. Gallant but Mr. Khan’s decision to simultaneously pursue Israeli and Palestinian leaders was criticized by Israeli government ministers and Hamas alike. Both sides questioned why their allies had been targeted instead of their enemies alone.
Israel is not a member of the court and does not recognize its jurisdiction in Israel or Gaza, making the announcement a largely symbolic gesture. But if warrants are issued, those named could be arrested if they travel to one of the court’s 124 member nations, which include most European countries but not the United States. The court’s judges can take weeks and even months to uphold requests for warrants.
Mr. Khan’s statement said that he had “reasonable grounds to believe” that Mr. Sinwar, Mr. Deif and Mr. Haniyeh were responsible for “war crimes and crimes against humanity” — including “the killing of hundreds of Israeli civilians in attacks perpetrated by Hamas.”
Mr. Khan said he sought their arrest both for the killing of civilians and the capture of hostages during the Oct. 7 attack, as well as the maltreatment of and sexual violence against hostages during their captivity in Gaza.
The requests for warrants were based on interviews with survivors, review of documentary evidence including video and photographs and field visits by Mr. Khan and his team to some of the sites attacked in Israel during the Hamas-led raid. He also visited the Israeli-occupied West Bank and a border crossing between Egypt and Gaza, but did not enter the territory.
“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,” Mr. Khan said in his statement. “These acts demand accountability.”
Regarding Mr. Netanyahu and Mr. Gallant, the prosecutor said he believed the Israeli leaders bore criminal responsibility for war crimes and crimes against humanity, including using starvation as a weapon of war and “intentionally directing attacks against a civilian population.”
While Mr. Khan said that Israel was allowed to protect its citizens, he said its forces had failed to uphold international law during its devastating response.
“Israel, like all States, has a right to take action to defend its population,” Mr. Khan wrote. “That right, however, does not absolve Israel or any State of its obligation to comply with international humanitarian law. 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.”
Within the Israeli government, which had been split over disagreements about war strategy in recent days, the announcement prompted ministers to set aside their differences and adopt a united front.
Benny Gantz, a minister in Israel’s war cabinet and a critic of Mr. Netanyahu, accused the prosecutor of “moral blindness” for drawing equivalence between the leaders of Israel and Hamas. Mr. Gantz’s response came less than two days after he threatened to quit Mr. Netanyahu’s cabinet for failing to set in motion a plan for the governance of postwar Gaza.
“The state of Israel fights in the most moral way in history, adhering to international law, and has an independent and strong judicial system,” Mr. Gantz said in a statement on social media. “Accepting the prosecutor’s position would be a historic crime.”
Relatives of Israeli hostages praised the push to hold Hamas’s leaders to account, but criticized the decision to target both Israeli politicians and Hamas at the same time.
The Hostage Families Forum, an alliance representing hostages’ relatives and supporters, said it “applauds the issuance of warrants against senior Hamas officials, which serves as further recognition of the crimes against humanity they committed on Oct. 7.” But the group’s statement added that it was “not comfortable with the equivalence drawn between Israel’s leadership and the terrorists of Hamas.”
Palestinians in Gaza had the inverse reaction, questioning why Palestinian leaders had been targeted instead of only Israelis. Hamas said Mr. Khan had tried to “equate the victim with the executioner by issuing arrest warrants against a number of Palestinian resistance leaders.”
Jaber Yahia, 50, a teacher in central Gaza, said by telephone that he was “relieved” to hear of the requests for warrants for Mr. Netanyahu and Mr. Gallant. “I was thinking, finally they will be brought to justice,” Mr. Yahia said. “Then I found out there were other warrants against Haniyeh, Sinwar and Deif. Why do they insist on putting the killers and victims in the same category?”
Appearing to anticipate such criticism from both sides, Mr. Khan wrote in his statement of the need to apply the law equally to all sides in a conflict.
“If we do not demonstrate our willingness to apply the law equally, if it is seen as being applied selectively, we will be creating the conditions for its collapse,” Mr. Khan said. “In doing so, we will be loosening the remaining bonds that hold us together, the stabilizing connections between all communities and individuals, the safety net to which all victims look in times of suffering. This is the true risk we face in this moment.”
Mr. Khan’s announcement did not come entirely as a surprise. In recent weeks, Israeli and Western officials had predicted privately and publicly that leaders from Israel and Hamas could soon face prosecution.
In late April, Mr. Netanyahu said on social media that the country “will never accept any attempt by the I.C.C. to undermine its inherent right of self-defense.” Any intervention by the I.C.C. “would set a dangerous precedent that threatens the soldiers and officials of all democracies fighting savage terrorism and wanton aggression,” Mr. Netanyahu said.
Weeks earlier, Volker Türk, the United Nations’ human rights chief, said that Israel’s restrictions on aid entering Gaza and the way it was conducting the war might amount to the use of starvation as a weapon. That is a war crime under the Rome Statute, the treaty of the I.C.C.
The I.C.C. is the world’s only permanent international court with the power to prosecute individuals accused of war crimes, genocide and crimes against humanity. It is separate from the International Court of Justice, another international tribunal in The Hague, which deals with disputes between states. The I.C.J. is currently assessing a claim, brought by South Africa, that Israel is conducting a genocide in Gaza, an accusation that Israel strongly denies.
The I.C.C. cannot try defendants in absentia, but its warrants can make international travel difficult. The court has no police force, relying instead on its members to make arrests. An arrested suspect is typically transferred to The Hague to appear before the court.
Israel has denied causing the hunger crisis in Gaza or placing limits on humanitarian aid entering the territory. It says Israeli officials have done all they can to bring food to the territory and that it is the fault of the United Nations and other organizations for failing to adequately distribute food and other humanitarian goods after the aid has crossed the border. But aid experts have said the crisis is a direct result of the war as well as Israel’s near-complete siege of the territory and its strikes on aid workers.
Analysts have also cited Israel’s failure to allow an alternative Palestinian leadership to take over in the territory, leading to a power vacuum and the breakdown of law and order, making it even harder to distribute food.
The food situation in Gaza was considered stable before the war began, despite a 16-year blockade on the territory instigated by Israel and Egypt. But food supplies sharply dropped in October, when Israel cut off all aid deliveries for the two weeks that followed the Hamas attack. At that time. Mr. Gallant promised a “total siege” on the territory, describing Israel’s attackers as “human animals” and promising “no electricity, no food, no fuel” for Gaza.
Since reopening some aid routes in late October, Israeli officials have still imposed rigorous checks on aid going into Gaza, which is home to around 2.2 million people, and the prospect of famine has been looming for months.
Mr. Khan cited several of these restrictions as justification for issuing arrest warrants for Mr. Netanyahu and Mr. Gallant, saying that they were part of “a widespread and systematic attack against the Palestinian civilian population.”
Gabby Sobelman in Rehovot, Israel, and Abu Bakr Bashir in London contributed reporting.
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