It had to happen. It has happened now. The International Criminal Court (ICC) could not sit idle over the continuing war in the middle east and the collateral damage suffered by innocent.
Civilians in Gaza. The ICC has finally flexed its muscles to issue an arrest warrant against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
The International Criminal Court has issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, former Défense Minister Yoav Gallant, as well as a senior Hamas official over alleged war crimes committed during the conflict that followed the October seven attacks on Israel last year. 
In a statement, the Netherlands-based court in the Hague said it found “reasonable grounds” to believe that Netanyahu bears criminal responsibility for war crimes including “starvation as a method of warfare” and “the crimes against humanity of murder, persecution, and other inhumane acts.”
It rejected Israel’s challenge of the court’s jurisdiction over the matter.
Israel is not a member of the ICC. The Palestinian Authority is however party to the Rome Statute that established the court and has joined as the State of Palestine. The court does not have its own enforcement mechanism and has relied on countries’ support for arrests.
The court also issued a warrant for Hamas official Mohammed Diab Ibrahim Al-Masri, also known as Mohammed Deif, who Israel says was one of the masterminds of the October 7 attack, Israel said it killed him in an airstrike in September, but Hamas has not confirmed his death.
The ICC said it found “reasonable grounds” to believe that Deif was responsible for “crimes against humanity, including murder, extermination, torture, and rape and other form of sexual violence, as well as the war crimes of murder, cruel treatment, torture, taking hostages, outrages upon personal dignity, and rape and other form of sexual violence.”
Deif bears “criminal responsibility” for these crimes, the court said, having “committed the acts jointly and through others having ordered or induced the commission of the crimes,” and for failing to “exercise proper control over forces under his effective command and control.”
The war in Gaza was provoked by the ambush by Hamas militants, who allegedly received training from Iran’s Revolutionary Guard, on Israeli soil when they came in disguise as Israeli soldiers in a convoy of vehicles that resembled that of IDF and massacred 1200 Israeli soldiers, dragged people from a music concert and took 250 hostages and fled.
In a retaliatory strike the Israel Défense Forces launched both air and ground offensive against the holed-up militants in Gaza, both in the north and southern regions and kept it going for more than a year, pounding them, even as international efforts by Qatar and other Arab countries including Egypt joined in the by the USA. Over one hundred hostages were released by the Hamas as Egypt opened the adjacent Rafa border.
South Africa was the first to move the ICC accusing Israel of genocide. Per Palestinian health authorities, at the last count, 50,000 innocent women, men, children were killed in the collateral damage when Israel tried to flush out the Hamas from their underground bunkers where they were suspectedly holding the hostages.
Israel claimed to have killed Hamas top leaders and said it had no option but to pound Gaza as the Hamas were taking cover under the citizens in the enclave. Israel took defines under the argument that before the offensive it had asked the civilians to evacuate the areas they were targeting for attack. But the civilians had nowhere to go to take shelter as per international reports as they were hemmed in on the south and north by Hamas and IDF and they were caught in the crossfire.
The United Nations and other civil service organizations rushed supplies to the affected civilians only to be subjected to severe check by the IDF which resulted in delayed supplies of food, water, and medicines. Hospitals were ravaged by the bomb attacks in Gaza.
Still one hundred hostages are held in captivity by the Hamas and negotiations are stalled over their release. Qatar has led the negotiations for their release through back channels as it did with the first lot of 140 hostages. The war eventually expanded into a bigger theatre of conflict as Hamas were aided and abetted by the Hezbollah, a larger and much organised militant force, which launched attacks from Lebanon. Soon the Houthis from Yemen joined in the war launching missiles and attacking ships traversing the Red Sea which led to disruption in supplies of raw materials, minerals and infrastructure materials to the world causing inflation to spike in several nations including the ZU.
The war also found its echo in the US when Arab and Palestinian voters, the traditional voting bloc of the Democrats, showed their anger and vented their frustration voting for Trump, who had claimed that he would have stopped the war if he had been president. Biden was under fierce attack from Palestinians as they launched national protests across colleges and universities in the country.
The Arabs were supported by a section of the Black African American youths. Calling for an end to the war and aiding UN by enforcing a ceasefire. Kamala Harris who ran for the presidency in 2024 against Donald Trump lost the election as the Arab voters voted against her for not making a clear statement that she would discontinue military aid to Israel which was taking the lives of innocent civilians.
Viewed against this background, the arrest warrants against Israeli PM Netanyahu, his defines chief Yve Gallant and the Hamas leader and mastermind of the October 7, 2023, attack Mohd Deif comes as no surprise. IDF claims Deif is dead but there is no confirmation from the Palestinian authorities.
Can the arrest warrant be enforced against Netanyahu, but as per geopolitical dynamics, ICC cannot execute the warrant unless it has the support of powerful countries from the western bloc, and there is none to stand by as they have all been supporting Israel and shedding crocodile tears over the loss of lives in Gaza of innocent civilians.
The fate of the arrest warrant hangs in the balance.
Israel has rejected the arrant as absurd and meaningless as it was a war to release the abductees. It also claims that ICC had no jurisdiction over Israel as it is not a signatory to the Rome charter that founded the UN outfit. Palestine is however a signatory as the ” State of Palestine”. ICC issued similar arrest warrants against Russian generals and political leaders, but it remains on paper, unenforceable.
Source: inputs from CNN
Contributor, IANS - Washington DC/New York
Executive Editor, Corporate Tycoons - Pune, India
Executive Editor, The Flag Post - Bengaluru, India
Contributor, The Statesman, Hindu Business Line, Sarkaritel.com, Diplomacyindia.com
Former Economics Editor, PTI - New Delhi, India
Former Communications Advisor,
Alstom Group of Companies, SA - France/Belgium
