Crimes against humanity and war crimes: these are the charges brought by the judges of the International Criminal Court (ICC) against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former defense minister Yoav Gallant, dismissed on 5 november. On Thursday, November 21, the three judges issued the arrest warrants requested in May by prosecutor Karim Khan against the two Israeli officials. A first for the ICC against leaders of a Western camp country.
The Israeli Prime Minister judged this decision “anti-Semitic”, considering himself the victim of a new “Dreyfus trial”. Mr. Gallant, for his part, denounced a “dangerous precedent” Who “encourages terrorism”. In Israel, a form of national union was immediately formed around the two accused. “It’s a dark day for justice. A dark day for humanity”Israeli President Isaac Herzog wrote on X, while opposition leader Yaïr Lapid estimated that “These arrest warrants are a bonus for terrorism.” Conversely, the Palestinian Authority saw it as a “sign of hope” and Hamas “important step towards justice”.
Benyamin Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant are being prosecuted as co-authors of “ war crimes for using starvation as a method of combat, and co-perpetrators of crimes against humanity for murder, persecution and other inhumane acts “. They are also suspected, as political leaders, of intentional attacks carried out against the civilian population in Gaza. A reference to events which took place between October 8, 2023, the day after the attack on southern Israel by Hamas, and May 20, 2024, the date on which the ICC prosecutor, Karim Khan, requested these arrest warrants after six months of investigations carried out as part of an investigation opened in 2021 into the alleged crimes of the Jewish state in the Palestinian territory occupied by Israel (West Bank, Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem). The State of Palestine joined the International Criminal Court in 2015.
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“Violation of international humanitarian law”
According to the Pre-Trial Chamber, the facts concern “the activities of Israeli government bodies and armed forces against the civilian population of Palestine, more particularly the civilians of Gaza”, committed in the context of an international armed conflict, and “between an occupying power and the population of an occupied territory”.
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