In an exclusive interview with CNN’s Christiane Amanpour on Monday, chief prosecutor Karim Khan of the International Criminal Court revealed that the court is requesting arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar on allegations of war crimes and crimes against humanity related to the October 7 attacks on Israel and the ensuing conflict in Gaza.
According to Khan, the ICC is also requesting warrants for Israel’s Defense Minister Yoav Gallant and two other prominent Hamas figures: Ismail Haniyeh, the political head of Hamas, and Mohammed Diab Ibrahim al-Masri, the commander of the Al Qassem Brigade popularly known as Mohammed Deif.
The top official of a close ally of the United States is being targeted by the ICC for the first time with warrants against Israeli politicians. By this decision, Netanyahu joins Russian President Vladimir Putin, for whom the International Criminal Court (ICC) has issued an arrest warrant due to Moscow’s aggression against Ukraine.
Khan has now requested the arrest warrants, and a panel of judges from the ICC will review his request.
“Extermination, murder, taking of hostages, rape and sexual assault in detention,” according to Khan, are among the charges brought against Sinwar, Haniyeh, and al-Masri.
“People have suffered enormously,” Khan said, “the world was shocked when people were ripped from their bedrooms, from their homes, from the different kibbutzim in Israel on October 7th.”
“Creating extermination, causing starvation as a method of war, including the denial of humanitarian relief supplies, deliberately targeting civilians in conflict,” is one of the accusations made against Netanyahu and Gallant.
Netanyahu stated that any ICC arrest warrants against top Israeli government and military officials “would be an outrage of historic proportions” and that Israel “has an independent legal system that rigorously investigates all violations of the law” in response to reports that the chief prosecutor of the ICC was considering taking this action.
When Amanpour questioned Khan about Netanyahu’s remarks, Khan responded, “Nobody is above the law.”
“They are free, notwithstanding their objections to jurisdiction, to raise a challenge before the judges of the court and that’s what I advise them to do,” he said, expressing Israel’s disagreement with the ICC.
The United States and Israel are not ICC members. Nevertheless, the International Criminal Court (ICC) asserts its authority over Gaza, East Jerusalem, and the West Bank following the formal 2015 agreement by Palestinian authorities to be bound by the fundamental rules of the court.
