About time…
ICC prosecutor seeks arrest warrants for Israeli PM and Hamas officials for war crimes
The chief prosecutor of the international criminal court has said he is seeking arrest warrants for senior Hamas and Israeli officials for war crimes and crimes against humanity, including the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and his defence minister, Yoav Gallant.
Karim Khan said his office had applied to the world court’s pre-trial chamber for arrest warrants for the military and political leaders on both sides for crimes committed during Hamas’s 7 October attack and the ensuing war in Gaza.
He named Yahya Sinwar, the Hamas chief in Gaza, and Mohammed Deif, the commander of its military wing, considered to be the masterminds of the 7 October assault, as well as Ismail Haniyeh, the leader of the group’s political bureau, who is based in Qatar, as wanted for crimes of extermination, murder, hostage-taking, rape, sexual assault and torture.
In an extraordinary rebuke of Israel’s treatment of Palestinians and its conduct in the war in Gaza, Netanyahu and Gallant are accused of extermination, causing starvation as a method of war, the denial of humanitarian relief supplies and deliberately targeting civilians. Monday’s statement notably does not include any Israel Defense Forces (IDF) officials, such as its chief of staff, Lt Gen Herzi Halevi, focusing instead on political decision-making.
Khan, the British ICC prosecutor, must request the warrants for the Hamas and Israeli suspects from a pre-trial panel of three judges, who take on average two months to consider the evidence and determine if the proceedings can move forward.
…it is impossible to look at the destruction and disproportionate response by Israel and not identify it as an ethnic cleansing war crime.
Likewise the civilians killed by Hamas on October 7th were ALSO a war crime! Yes, you can make the argument that those Hamas killed who were security guards and soldiers were legitimate targets but the 300 dead civilians and the 252 hostages ARE not justifiable and are indeed war crimes!
Now the scale of war crime is different between Hamas and Israel, but they are still both war crimes!
It is important that both sides are held accountable for the horror they have wrought, but what is most important is an immediate ceasefire, an immediate return of hostages, immediate relief aid entering Gaza and a peace summit that actually sets forward a path towards Palestinian sovereignty and self determination.
Defenders of Israel will always claim it is a democracy with all the checks and balances of a democracy, but Israel’s decision to shut down Al Jazeera flies in the face of those pretensions.
This is an authoritarian regime, propped up by Billions in US Military Aid to oppress and occupy the remaining shreds of Palestinian land and they are perfectly happy to quell any democratic norm to enforce a Jewish State rather than a State of Israel.
Netanyahu’s entire political career has been built upon inflaming Palestinian rage, responding violently with disproportionate force and harvest the Israeli extremist vote at the ballot box.
He is a ruthless, dangerous and corrupt player of the game. He needs to escalate and feed this conflict because the moment he doesn’t is the moment the Israeli establishment turns on him for the Intelligence failure of October 7th.
There are 1.4million desperate Palestinians huddled in Rafah, this conflict has already breached the technical standards of ethnic cleansing war crime and any actual full scale attack on Rafah could easily tip that into open genocide.
Right now 34,789 people have been killed and 78,204 wounded.
They suspect at least 10 000 more dead under the rubble that they haven’t managed to dig out.
So we are closing in on 50 000 dead, the majority of whom have been women and children.
Invading Rafah would be an atrocity too far.
If Israel invades Rafah, there will be an unimaginable blowback.
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“Now the scale of war crime is different between Hamas and Israel, but they are still both war crimes!”
Something many people seem to have a hard time understanding. Or it’ll be “oh but my side was justified”
Apartheid Israel induction into the infamous hall of shame with other african leaders & Putin prosecuted by this toothless ICC is just meaningless performative BS and ain’t gonna do shit. They also targeted Hamas in their charade arrest warrant even though Hamas isn’t a state actor and has killed the least out of these state actor murderers.
It is important to understand that the difference between the crimes committed by Hamas fighters and those committed by the State of Israel are not just a matter of scale. There is a fundamental and very important difference which has been well explained by Tarik Cyril Amar in his Ninth Wave Podcast. He says it better than I can, but the difference, in essence, is that Hamas fighters committed crimes while in the course of waging a legitimate war for liberation from the brutal oppression of an occupying power. Israel’s crimes, on the other hand, are part and parcel of a much greater all encompassing pre-meditated crime perpetrated over a period of decades. This crime, the crime of genocide, is intended to eradicate Palestinians from Gaza and the West Bank, even at the price of their total extermination. Therefore there is no moral equivalence between Hamas and the State of Israel, and the ICC prosecutor was wrong to allow the inference that the two cases are differentiated only by the scale of the offence. Let us be clear. Every side in World War II committed war crimes, some on the Allied side being quite horrendous, but it was Nazi Germany which distinguished itself by setting about the removal and extermination of entire populations as a deliberate and systematic policy. That is the real difference between Hamas and Israel, which the ICC was wrong to ignore.
Thanks Geoff F that needed to be set out clearly like a light glimmering the way in fog.
Yep.
Also, the inconvenient fact that the Israelis knowingly hundreds of their own in their scorched earth counter attack on October 7.
Palestinians have been looking for legal recourse, in Israel, in the Arab League, in the UN, the NGOs every day for 75 years. How about the Great March of Return? The world told them they were on their own, left to the tender mercy and “justice” of the cracist colonisers who have no compunction about slaughtering them in their beds daily and laying sieges to hospitals and imagining it justified. No one with any clue of what thy have endured can fault them for not trying everything else before violent action against an oppressor who possesses overwhelming force and power over them. Of course it’s “horrific” to those who seem to turn a blind eye to their suffering at the hand of the Zionists, but s an action the hostage operation was limted and targeted and they had every right to use force try and take hostages considering they are an entire hostage nation with actual abductions and disappearing happening every day. And no one was standing up for them.
Hamas aren’t terrorists. They are just the resistance.
“Now the scale of war crime is different between Hamas and Israel, but they are still both war crimes!”
In some jurisdictions committing minor crimes to stop much bigger ones is legally defensible. I’d say an afternoon of shock & awe is justified to highlight 70+ years of nakba.
I do find it troubling that anyone would consider the murder and rape of women and children in any way justifiable.
There is no way anyone could justify or condone the rape of women and children under any circumstances.
Anyone committing such acts as a tactic of war, or condoning such acts as a tactic of war has lost any sense of humanity.
Terry, got proof on the rapes of babies or woman??? And please no Zaka conspiracy BS thanks!
Do you have any proof for this?. Israel has not provided any proof to these claims, why don’t you usurp them and be the very first people to provide the verifiable proof behind these heinous, but nonetheless empty claims.
no rapes occurred no evidence exists for Hamas having raped any women at the festival or the Kibbutz. This has all been refuted by the Israeli newspapers. The so called Israeli expert has been exposed and her bullshit shown for the usual Israeli deceit. The grotesque smearing of the Palestinians by the scumbag Israelis knows no bounds. Only uninformed drop kicks believe this garbage.Oh and kiwis.
A cynical and politicised move from an organisation that has no jurisdiction in this matter. There is no moral equivalence between a sovereign state justly defending itself and a listed, genocidal terrorist entity. This is just another cheap ploy backed by ignorant people, who haven’t even visited the war zone, to demonise the world’s only Jewish state. They got the Hamas bit right, but Israel can safely ignore this rubbish.
Noone believes your lies, zionist. All humans know that anything that comes out of your mouth is a lie.
Mohammed Khan – But gaby is correct on two points: Hamas is a terrorist organisation, and Israel is the only Jewish State in the world..
Sorry, but everyone knows that antisemitism is vile racism. And everyone knows that anti-zionism is fundamentally justified and on par with anti-apartheid, anti-war and anti-fascist.
Zionism is fascism, written to justify theft of land and resources belonging to others. There is zero, null, no justification for Zionism. It is inheritently evil.
Even the Holocaust survivors are appalled and disgusted at the practice adopted by the Netenyahu regime, along with at least 50% of the Israeli public.
The sooner you realise that you are just like the Nazis who perpetrated their evil against the Jews in Europe, that you are perpetrating exactly the same kind of systematic industrial scale destruction of another people – the Palestinians – the sooner you will come to your senses and realise the evil that you do.
There is no excuse for it, none whatsoever. Especially, as you have had exactly the same behaviour perpetrated against you. That simple fact makes what is being done in Gaza, ten times more appalling than the Holocaust. You should be ashamed of yourself. You let down your family, your culture, your religion and your country.
Law is concerned with the judgement of criminal acts, and not with the standing of plaintiff or defendant. Sovereign status does not provide Israel with impunity under international law. The opposite is the case. Neither does the fact that Hamas is listed as a terrorist entity have any relevance. The facts must speak for themselves, and as Tarik Cyril Amar has pointed out, there is no moral equivalence between Israel and Hamas because Israel’s crime is long-standing, premeditated and systematic. In both its nature and its scale the Israeli crime of genocide far exceeds anything done by Hamas.
“There is no moral equivalence between a sovereign state justly defending itself and a listed, genocidal terrorist entity.”
No, they are completely equivalent, which is why both Hamas and the IDF are each being accused of war crimes. Obviously, you’re either Jewish or Jewish-adjacent, so I’m sure it’s not the first nor the last time you’ll expect to be allowed your own special standard of behaviour and licence to do whatever you want, no matter how morally dubious. You’ll probably cite the Holocaust as your justification and call anyone who questions you an anti-semite as well. We all see the tactics used, but those tactics don’t work like they used to.
Martyn – By the way, Israel is not member of the ICC…so this “action” is for show
Stick to knitting dude you made a fool out of yourself already on this issue
These are the countries subject to the ICC
https://asp.icc-cpi.int/states-parties
Notable war-like countries that are not voluntarily subject to the ICC.
Russia, Ukraine, USA, Israel.
Those ‘252 hostages’ are prisoners of war taken by the army of a legitimate nation. They are criminals who have committed crimes far worse than anyone held at Guantanamo Bay, and yet they are being treated far better by their captors. Meanwhile the zionist terrorists have kidnapped more than 8,000 ACTUAL hostages since 7 October, tortured and raped most of them, and murdered many of them.
“…it is impossible to look at the destruction and disproportionate response by Israel and not identify it as an ethnic cleansing war crime.” Martyn Bradbury
No need to mince words Martyn it’s genocide.
Following Hamas October 7 attack, In words and actions, from October 8 on, Israeli leaders made it quite clear from the start that they intended to commit genocide in Gaza. Beginning with the immediate and indiscriminate mass aerial bombardment of close packed civilian areas, not matched in modern times since the genocidal destruction of Homs.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mt3gR4BUPmQ
The IDF in breach of the Camp David Accords, seized control of the crossing at Rafah; Since last Sunday all exits and entrances to Gaza have been sealed off.
Nothing in nothing out.
Completing Defense Minister Yoav Gallant’s pledge for a “complete siege” of the Gaza Strip.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/defense-minister-announces-complete-siege-of-gaza-no-power-food-or-fuel/#
It is not genocide. This is a civil war, an extension of the fighting between those who (both Jews and Muslims) want to live in a country called Israel, and Arab Muslims who want to live in the same land, but without any Jews.
Sorry, Terry, but not historically accurate. And a tad simplistic.
Whatever the rights and wrongs of the roots of this conflict, and there are many on both sides, there was a genuine and near perfect solution agreed in the Oslo Accords. That ended with the murder of Rabin by the same right wing extremists who lead Israel today. Their denials of this are propaganda on par with the best/worst of Dr Goebbels efforts.
It’s going to take a radical political shift in Israeli politics to bounce them out of the mire. The ICJ warrants might just be the touch paper. It might just make Israelis see exactly how too far they’ve gone.
Terry, says the liars that back this apartheid state.
Do you do any fact checks on your statements Terry? If so, you are missing the point in this last comment. It’s too simplistic and better put aside until you have listened more to those trying to be adult and thoughtful about this dreadful killing field.
Adults do their own fact checking Greywarbler and it’s not difficult. They will of course have checked the number of humanitarian aid trucks passing through the checkpoints to Gaza and deliveries via the newly assembled floating pier. – despite soldiers and even visiting UN personnel being shot at by Hamas. They will know that statements of sieges made in the immediate aftermath of a heinous terror attack, were said from shock and despair and that no such siege has eventuated. Adults know that Mr O’Dea is simply parroting disinformation in a feeble attempt to hike up his “genocide” claim.
Quite short utubes from Pappe and Finkelstein about Israel/Palestine if you want more info. The argument is done and dusted now, though we all grew up with Israel’s argument foremost in our minds. To summarize, the conclusion turned out to be Israel holds Palestine purely by sword-right, not a jot of moral right.
Terry’s racist cartoonish retelling of history with a lie to underpin it.
Muslim and Jewish and Christian believers have lived in historic Palestine in peace for centuries.
HISTORICAL CONTEXT OF ISRAEL-PALESTINE CONFLICT
https://www.cjpme.org/history
Contrary to the myth that “Jews and Muslims have been at each other’s throats for thousands of years,” the Middle East’s Jews, Muslims and Christians lived in relative peace for centuries until well into the 20th century. While it is often portrayed as a religious conflict, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is actually a political conflict. The origins of the conflict can be traced back to legacies of European anti-Semitism and foreign interference in the Middle East, which culminated in the dispossession of Palestinians by Israelis in 1948…..
And contrary to Terry’s presumption that Jewish people and Muslim people are traditional enemies trying to displace each other, it is Zionists not Jews that are trying to violently expel the native Palestinians from their lands and homes.
Abby Martin interviewed by Ash Sarkar
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EuB5SeahL-E
Abby Martin @40:30 Minutes:
” I think that people need to ask themselves why you never see Western Media, or pro-Israel media putting microphones in front of Israelis faces.
Why is that?
Why is it that we only see pre-approved government spokespeople speaking to American and British audiences?
It’s because Israeli Society is very, very fascist.
Yes we know there was socialist Kibbutz at the beginning.
And I’m sure there was a lot of progressive enclaves.
Over time in Israel, a lot of leftists have been simply pushed out.
To be a leftist is simply a slur, in fact it’s more dangerous than ever. I know. I spent a month in the West Bank. I interviewed hundreds of Palestinians not one person ever said anything remotely genocidal about Israelis, all of them just said. ‘we just want to live and coexist side by side, we just want to live in peace, why do they have to move on top of our Villages? Why do they have to do this to us, why do they have to bully harass and intimidate us, why can’t they just coexist with us?
I went to Jerusalem to a place called tolerance Square for literally like three hours and the racism and vitriolic genocidal incitement against Palestinians was palpable I mean all I did was just go around and do man on the streets like I do. I do that everywhere I go. I just just like to get a snapshot of where people’s minds are at and I literally just asked Israelis, it wasn’t even just Israelis, it was settlers, it was um just American citizens who were there just moving to Israel.
Of course we know a lot of people just up and move just like Netanyahu himself who’s from Philadelphia I just simply asked them what do you think about the situation? And you should hear the rhetoric that came out of people’s mouths. Knowing that they were on camera, every single one as espoused genocide or ethnic cleansing. And it was just absolutely horrific. I mean I could not believe what I was hearing with my own eyes.
One Israeli told me that they were a leftist and they said, ‘I just want the the occupation to be more Humane, and he said leftist is a slur here in Israel.
I have colleagues, uh Dan Sheen, who… I’m sorry David Sheen, who would go to rallies and embed himself in these fascist rallies in Tel Aviv where you have thousands of people chanting not just death to Arabs but death to the leftists, death to the leftists. Because there’s a saying in Israeli society that leftists are AIDS and Arabs are the common cold, you can’t get rid of the common cold unless you get rid of AIDS. And that’s really genuinely what they think. Because they want the final solution for the Arabs, they want to expel or kill all Arabs so they could have essentially an ethno State….
I hate … that script. How I learnt to write 50 years ago.
Third time, I read it through properly. Should be a column here.
I, myself, want to send in the Black Watch. Just the march down a Gaza street, bagpipes skirling, kilts whirling, before they were obliterated would do the trick. Make up for 400 years of being henchmen for the English in Ireland?
Thanks Terry for admitting its a “civil war” by doing so you admit that Palestinians were/are a part of the stolen land called Israel.
“Palestinian” Arab Muslims want to live in that same land without any religious minorities sullying their existence. They will use the “Palestinian” Christians to advance their own national interest but should a 2-state solution come to pass the persecution of those minorities, which has already occurred in Gaza, Ramallah and Bethlehem, will be accelerated to match the dire situation of religious minorities over all the Middle East, Iran, Africa and South Asia.
When the US and Israel (increasingly the same thing) repudiate and dismiss organisations like the ICC when it suits their purposes, then what does that say about the legitimacy of the courts and the earlier proceedings for “war crimes” and the like involving, say Milosovic, Saddam and yes, even the Big One that signaled the arrival of the “rules based international order” that legitimsed and justified the post 1945 Judeo-American order, the Nazis at Nuremberg?
It certainly calls these examples into question as being the largely arbitrary, cynical and selective use of international judicial forums by the victors against the vanquished to excuse, justify and draw attention away from their own actions and culpability in the contexts of the various conflicts under consideration.
Israel is a fake country created by violent lying fascists and built on stolen Palestinian land. The Israel has zero right to exist.
I would say Hamas are pretty hopeful at this moment that they have initiated a series of events that may well end in a final resolution of this nasty situation created by the Brits a century ago. Perhaps with some good intentions but without any wisdom. It was too late in world history to create a colony in a far off land , especially in the land occupied for century s by a people just as advanced and civilised as the colonists and for far longer than the Brits themselves.
What is happening is that the world has started to pay proper attention as never before and Israel is not going to survive this attention in it’s present form.
I predict that many Israelies will return to the countries whence they came , as the illusion of a Jewish utopia b fades from view and the world comes to view them with contempt and disgust. Everyone who can go somewhere else will do so and the remainder will accept the end of aparthied and live in a Palestinian / Israeli
state in something much more like a democracy. And between the river and the sea both Israelis and Palestinians will be as free as they were 2000 years ago.
D J S
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