The Egyptian, Qatari and United States “hope” that a cease-fire will be reached in Gaza, today is linked to another possibility that would be despairing Benjamin Netanyahu: the alleged issuance of an arrest warrant against by the International Criminal Court (ICC).
Versions initially circulated by Israeli officials in Hebrew media have been circulating for days, but gained momentum over the weekend, with The New York Times adding, anonymously citing five Israeli and foreign officials, who added that the ICC he would also be preparing arrest warrants against Hamas leaders.
According to the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, the requests could take place even this week and would be addressed to two more high-ranking Israeli officials: the Minister of Defense, Yoav Gallant, and the head of the army, Herzi Halevi.
In recent days some Israeli officials have been referring to the investigation opened three years ago by the ICC for war crimes committed by Israel and Palestinian factions in the 2014 Gaza offensive and the expansion of Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank.
However, according to reports, the three Israeli leaders would be accused of obstructing the entry of humanitarian aid into Gaza in the current invasion, while the members of the Islamist group would be prosecuted for the attacks of 7 last october
Experts point out that these are charges that could be proven with the available evidence and are in line with criticisms that have been repeated by the ICC’s chief prosecutor, Karim Khan, in several appearances. In addition, they do not rule out further charges.
There is no official confirmation, and the ICC has not yet given any indication of these arrest warrants, but Netanyahu has already stood up defiantly to a body not recognized by Israel, which in the past he described as “anti-Semitic” to include – have Palestine as a member or investigate Israeli actions. In a letter to the Xdivendres network, the prime minister emphasized that “under my leadership, Israel will never accept any attempt by the ICC to undermine its legitimate right to defend itself.”
Netanyahu’s preemptive reaction is in line with what some journalists in Israel have pointed out, including Ben Caspit of the Walla website, who claimed the prime minister was “under unusual stress” and has led “relentless pressure to phone” to avoid arrest warrants.
He would have expressed these concerns to his US counterpart, Joe Biden, on Sunday, and also to the foreign ministers of the United Kingdom and Germany when they were in Israel in mid-April. And in this sense, the Hebrew press also echoes operations by Israeli diplomatic bodies to stop the ICC, with the support – according to Bloomberg – of Washington and the G-7 countries, who fear that the sanctions of the ICC dynamit a potential pact between Israel and Hamas.
But this could also be seen as an attempt to pre-empt those orders, just as the Israeli military has begun to emphasize an increase in aid entering Gaza – even holding an unusual press conference on the Sabbath – and the authorities have enabled the visit of British observers to verify the status of Palestinian prisoners, including members of the elite Hamas force that took part in the 7-O brutality, in view of the multiple evidence of ill-treatment in Israeli prisons.
For Adil Haque, professor at the Rutgers University of New Jersey law school, the information “is difficult to understand”. “If the CPI prosecutor has not yet filed the application, why wait for court orders this week? And if he has already presented it, then it would be too late to put pressure on him”, pointed out X.
In this sense, the Israeli media Ynet alluded to high-ranking sources in the Israeli judicial team who question the “hysteria” of Netanyahu’s environment; while Haaretz columnist Anshel Pfeffer speculated on “manipulation”, either by the US to “pressure Netanyahu” or by the prime minister to “justify the measures he is planning”.
Either way, even though the ICC cannot carry out arrests and Israel does not admit to its jurisdiction, the move would be another international rebuke to the devastation and death caused by Israel in Gaza, and would put Benjamin Netanyahu on par with impeached leaders for possible war crimes, such as Russian President Vladimir Putin and former Sudanese leader Omar al-Baixir.
In addition, the prime minister would be limited in his trips abroad, because, according to the Statute of Rome -founding of the ICC-, the 123 countries that recognize it, among which there is no USA, China or Russia, but most Europeans, have an obligation to comply with arrest requests within their territories.
Likewise, an advance by the ICC would highlight that Israel’s judicial system is not doing enough to appeal to “complementarity,” a principle that assumes that the ICC should not intervene when local justice investigates its high officials for possible violations of international law.
On the other hand, a Hamas delegation was in Cairo yesterday to hold “extended talks” with Egyptian officials on the latest proposal drawn up to achieve a ceasefire in Gaza, according to Egyptian sources. A Hamas official told the Efe agency that at the moment “there are no major problems” in the comments on a proposal that would involve the release of 33 hostages – including women, the sick and adults over 50 – in exchange of an unspecified number of “Palestinians in Israeli prisons”. Nevertheless, the Prime Minister of Egypt, Mustafa Madbuli, regretted that the “internal pressures” within the Government of Israel and the Islamist group Hamas were the main stumbling blocks in the process.
In Riyadh, at the World Economic Forum, the view of the Western powers was much more optimistic. According to David Cameron, British Foreign Secretary, “the Palestinian Islamist movement has been given a very generous offer of 40 days and the release of thousands of prisoners” in exchange for the release of Israeli hostages. The US Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, was also hopeful that “Hamas will accept an extraordinarily generous proposal” without specifying its content. “They have to make a decision and they have to make it soon, and I hope it’s a good decision,” added the politician. “If this is confirmed, we will be faced with a profound change in the dynamics [of the conflict]”.
Cameron also spoke of an agreement that opens the door to “the two-state solution”. For this reason, the leaders of Hamas should leave Gaza and dismantle the terrorist infrastructure. “The Palestinian people have the right to a political future, but Israel’s security must be guaranteed.”
