ICC warrants against Netanyahu, Gallant expected within 2 weeks

The International Criminal Court (ICC) is expected to approve Chief Prosecutor Karim Khan's request to file arrest warrants against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant within the next two weeks, Israel's Channel 14 News reported.

According to the report, Israel had been relying on the promise by the previous Conservative government in Britain to file a challenge to the ICC's claims of jurisdiction over Gaza and Israel to prevent the warrants from being issued. However, now that a new Labour government has risen in the UK, there are conflicting reports as to whether the challenge will be filed. According to the Guardian, Labour Party officials have said that the party accepts the ICC's jurisdiction in this case.

Israeli officials now believe the warrants will be issued some time in the second half of July.

Channel 14 reporter Tamir Morag said, "We are about to see, after the worst massacre of Jews since the Holocaust, two arrest warrants against the prime minister of Israel and the defense minister of Israel.”

ICC Chief Prosecutor Karim Khan announced in May that he is seeking arrest warrants against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant.

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.

Earlier this month, it was revealed that Khan had canceled a fact-finding mission to Israel in which he would have gathered evidence in the case on the same day he announced that he is seeking the warrants.