ICC warrant against Netanyahu, Gallant mentions using starvation as weapon

The International Criminal Court (ICC) at The Hague, Netherlands on Thursday issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former defence minister Yoav Gallant “for crimes against humanity and war crimes”, international media outlets such as Financial Times and Al Jazeera have reported.

The move marks a drastic escalation in the court's proceedings related to the war in Gaza, and essentially means that the ICC’s 124 member states are now obliged to arrest Netanyahu and Gallant if they enter territory belonging to those states, the FT report states. Significantly, China, India, Israel, Russia, and the United States are not members of the ICC.

As early as May this year, Hungary had said it would not enforce the possible ICC warrant for the arrest of Netanyahu on its territory. Government minister Gergely Gulyas told reporters in Budapest that Netanyahu would not be detained if he visited Hungary.

Like all other member states, Hungary is a signatory of the Rome Statute which established the ICC, but Gulyas said provisions for the enforcement of the court's decisions were not yet fully in force in the country. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban is seen as an ally of Netanyahu, who condemned the ICC move as "outrageous" and a "disgrace".

Coming back to the present, the court said it had unanimously decided to reject Israel’s appeal regarding the ICC’s jurisdiction and added that there were “reasonable grounds” to believe that Netanyahu and Gallant “bear criminal responsibility for the war crime of starvation as a method of warfare”.

The ICC also said there were reasonable grounds to believe the two had “intentionally and knowingly deprived” Gaza’s civilians of food, water, medicine, medical supplies and fuel and electricity, the FT report says.

A third arrest warrant was issued for Mohammed Deif — long-time leader of Hamas’ armed wing, the Qassam Brigades — for crimes against humanity and war crimes. Among his alleged crimes is the firing of rockets at Israeli territory and the 7 October 2023 attacks which reportedly killed at least 1,139 Israelis.

Interestingly, Israel had announced in August this year that it had killed Deif in an air raid in Gaza a month earlier. That attack on a designated safe zone had struck tents housing displaced Palestinians and a water distillation plant, killing at least 90 people and wounding 300 others, Al Jazeera has reported.

In May 2024, the ICC had announced that its prosecutor Karim A.A. Khan would be submitting applications to seek arrest warrants against Netanyahu and Gallant in connection with Israel's actions in Palestine. In his statement, Khan said “Israel has intentionally and systematically deprived the civilian population in all parts of Gaza of objects indispensable to human survival.”

Netanyahu, who earlier this month sacked Gallant in a dramatic move apparently arising out of a mutual lack of trust, has previously rejected the ICC prosecutor’s application for arrest warrants as “absurd and false . . . and a distortion of reality”.

As per an Al Jazeera report, there is now a new presiding judge of the pre-trial chamber who has issued these warrants. The previous presiding judge recently stepped down on medical grounds, after months of investigating the case.