International Criminal Court Chief Prosecutor Karim Khan suddenly canceled a planned fact-finding mission to Israel the same day he announced that he is seeking arrest warrants against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, Reuters reported.
Eight sources with direct knowledge of the proceedings that occurred confirmed the cancelation of the planned visit to Reuters.
Khan had been planning his visit for months in order to gather evidence for a potential war crimes investigation against Israel and Hamas in the war that began with the massacre committed by Hamas on October 7, 2023.
Khan announced that he is seeking arrest warrants against Netanyahu and Gallant on May 20, the same day he canceled the visit. He believed that there was enough evidence to seek the warrants even without the evidence-gathering mission.
In addition to the Israeli leaders, Khan announced that he is also seeking arrest warrants against three Hamas leaders, Yahya Sinwar, Mohammed Deif, and Ismail Haniyeh.
Khan told CNN at the time that the charges against Sinwar, Haniyeh, and al-Masri include “extermination, murder, taking of hostages, rape and sexual assault in detention.”
As for the Israeli officials, Khan said the charges include: “Causing extermination, causing starvation as a method of war, including the denial of humanitarian relief supplies, deliberately targeting civilians in conflict."
Khan's charge that Israel was using starvation as a method of war was based on reports of famine in Gaza that were later revealed to be false or exaggerated, as the latest report by the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) found in late June.
Khan's announcement was criticized in Israel for appearing to draw a moral equivalence between Israeli leaders and the leaders of the Hamas terrorist organization, for ignoring Israel's strong judiciary, and for targeting a nation over which the ICC should have no jurisdiction. The US and Britain also criticized the decision on similar grounds.
The ICC has yet to follow through on Khan's request to issue the arrest warrants.
