ICC is going to issue an arrest warrant against Netanyahu
Last Updated on April 20, 2024 6:09 am
The International Criminal Court in The Hague, Netherlands has decided to issue arrest warrants against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, members of his wartime cabinet and several senior officers of the Israeli Defense Forces for the brutal operation of Israeli forces in the besieged Gaza Strip and numerous incidents of violations of international law and human rights. (ICC).
The Israeli government has confirmed from a special source that the ICC has a plan to implement this decision very soon. Netanyahu recently called an emergency meeting in his office to prevent this possible move.
Yariv Levin, Minister of Justice of Israel’s current Wartime Special Cabinet, Ron Dermer, Minister of Strategic Affairs, Foreign Minister Israel Katz, and several pro-government lawyers were also legal experts in attendance.
The office of the foreign minister of the state confirmed to the Israeli press that the meeting took place last Tuesday night.
British Foreign Minister David Cameron and German Foreign Minister Annalina Bierbock visited Jerusalem on Wednesday. During the meeting with them, Netanyahu is said to have raised the issue of possible ICC arrest. He also sought the cooperation of the governments of these two countries to prevent warrants.
Incidentally, in 2014 there was a massive conflict between Hamas and the IDF. In 2019, the ICC announced the start of an investigation into the crimes against humanity committed in that war. Later, after this work was suspended for about one and a half years due to the corona epidemic, the ICC started the investigation again on March 23, 2021.
As part of that investigation, Karim Khan, the ICC’s top prosecutor, visited Israel last December. He was unable to visit Gaza due to the objections of the Israeli administration and army, but before returning after that visit, he said that the October 7 attack by Hamas and the Israeli military response to it was not a spontaneous event, and that the previous and ongoing violence was the result of Hamas and the IDF. He thinks it is planned. He mentioned that he has some evidence in this regard.
The ICC is said to have started the process of issuing the arrest warrant three months after Karim Khan’s visit, which has worried the Israeli government.