Israel’s leadership under Benjamin Netanyahu stands increasingly isolated. On Thursday, the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for the current prime minister and the former defense minister Yoav Gallant for war crimes and crimes against humanity, alongside the leader of Hamas’s military wing, Mohamed Deif. Israeli officials immediately denounced the warrants as anti-Semitic, and their allies in the United States voiced a principled rejection. Yet the warrants are hard to ignore: they signal a growing international distance from Israel as long as it shows no signs of halting its bombardment of the Gaza Strip and Lebanon.
The ICC is an international court of last resort that prosecutes individuals, not states, for crimes such as genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes, and the crime of aggression. Founded in 2002 under the Rome Statute, it defines four core crimes that are not subject to any statute of limitations. The ICC is sometimes confused with the International Court of Justice, the UN’s judicial body that settles disputes between states, a distinction illustrated by earlier accusations of genocide involving South Africa and Israel.
Several European countries, including France, the Netherlands, Ireland and the United Kingdom, have said they will honor their international legal obligations and would arrest Netanyahu and Gallant if they visited their territory. With the ICC’s action, the names of the Israeli leaders enter Interpol’s system. The 125 states party to the Rome Statute are obliged to detain them. Article 27 asserts the principle of equal citizenship and eliminates immunity for a head of government. Among the states expected to act are a broad swath of the world, including most European Union members, Central America, Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia, large parts of Africa and South America.
The ICC based its decision on acts alleged to have occurred between October 8 of last year, the day after Israel launched its Gaza offensive, and May 20, when the Prosecutor submitted the arrest requests. In the document published on Thursday to announce the warrants, the ICC says Netanyahu and Gallant are criminally responsible as co-authors for having carried out together with others the war crime of starvation as a method of warfare, and crimes against humanity of murder, persecution and other inhumane acts. It also attributes criminal responsibility as civilian superiors for directing an intentional attack against the civilian population. In Gaza, more than 44,000 Palestinians have died and nearly 105,000 have been wounded in the 13 months of Israeli violence.
Although the warrants carry significant symbolic weight, they do not automatically end the Gaza war or alter Israel’s political leadership. The prime minister can still travel internationally, though he has scarcely left the country since the offensive began. Issuing an arrest warrant does not ban travel, but those named risk arrest if they set foot in a state party to the Rome Statute. The ICC lacks its own police force, so it relies on member states to carry out detentions. If states hesitate, the penalties amount to little more than diplomatic rebuke, such as referring a country to the ICC’s governing body and, in the end, to the UN Security Council. Since Israel does not recognize the court, detentions cannot occur on Israeli soil. There are also no formal restrictions preventing political leaders, legislators or diplomats from meeting with people who are the subject of arrest warrants from the court.
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