(WatchDogReport.org) – The International Criminal Court announced on May 20 that it’s trying to approve arrest warrants for Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, based on charges of war crimes that the organization claimed he probably committed in the conflict in Gaza. In a statement, the ICC Chief Prosecutor Karim Khan said that these charges are tied to the October 7 attacks perpetrated by the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas in Israel and the military operation executed by the Jewish State in response.
Kahn added that the organization will seek arrest warrants for three of Hamas’ main leaders, Ismail Haniyeh, Yahya Sinwar, and Mohammed Deif, as well as for Israeli Minister of Defense Yoav Gallant. The chief prosecutor explained that the Israeli government is accused of “willfully” killing, starving, and causing extreme suffering to Palestinians in Gaza as a war strategy. Meanwhile, he said that the three Hamas leaders are accused of taking hostages, as well as raping, torturing, and murdering civilians.
The Israeli government and many of its Western allies, including US President Joe Biden, criticized the ICC and claimed that it was an unnecessary step. In a video, Netanyahu said that the warrant bid was “false” and “absurd,” arguing that it was disgraceful and disgusting for Kahn to compare the Israeli Armed forces to one of the worst terrorist groups in the Middle East. The Israeli leader even accused Kahn and the ICC of antisemitism, which he said increased after the October 7 attacks and was exhibited in the numerous college protests in the United States and other nations in Europe.
In a statement, President Biden and US Secretary of State Antony Blinken criticized Kahn and the ICC by saying that what they did was “outrageous.” The two American politicians also said that no matter what Kahn wanted to imply in his statement, it was wrong to make the false equivalence between a terrorist group like Hamas and the Israeli Armed Forces.
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