The issuance of arrest warrants against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former War Minister, Yoav Gallant, on November 21, descended like a lightning bolt on the two men, neither of whom figured they’d ever face justice for crimes they vehemently deny.
Equally shaken up – some ready and willing to fulfill their duty to the world’s top criminal court; others hedging their bets – were the 125 State Parties to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC), soon to be tasked with executing warrants against the two Israeli leaders, and other criminal targets surely in ICC Chief Prosecutor Karim Khan’s sights, once warrants have been certified and communicated to ICC member states by the Court Registry.
This past week, at the sprawling World Forum Convention Center, in The Hague, delegates of those countries gathered for the 23rd Session of the ICC’s Assembly of State Parties (ASP), the representative body that governs and supervises the implementation of the ICC’s founding treaty, the 2002 Rome Statute, ultimately ensuring that the perpetrators of the most serious international crimes are arrested, tried and jailed.
Among the crimes Netanyahu and Gallant have been charged with, in warrants classified ‘secret’: “the war crime of starvation as a method of warfare, and the crimes against humanity of murder, persecution, and other inhumane acts,” all “part of a widespread and systematic attack against the civilian population of Gaza.”
Suggesting the crime of genocide – without specifying this crime of international crimes — ICC Pre-Trial Chamber judges cited “reasonable grounds to believe [Netanyahu and Gallant] intentionally and knowingly deprived the civilian population in Gaza of objects indispensable to their survival.”
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