Israel announced on Wednesday that it wanted to appeal the ICC arrest warrants targeting Benjamin Netanyahu and his former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant.
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Israel notified the ICC on Wednesday of its intention to appeal the arrest warrants targeting Benjamin Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant. The Jewish State further requested that while awaiting a decision from the ICC on the merits, the execution of these two arrest warrants be suspended.
The Court had rejected Israel’s claim that it should have informed it of its investigation into the conduct of the war, while clarifying that Israel had the right to appeal the Court’s jurisdiction after its decision to issue arrest warrants.
The question of Benjamin Netanyahu’s “immunity”
Since the announcement of the ICC arrest warrant targeting the Israeli Prime Minister, France has repeated that it will comply with its obligations required by international law, but without really saying whether it will arrest him.
The press release below was released this Wednesday on the website of the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs :
“France will respect its international obligations, it being understood that the Rome Statute requires full cooperation with the International Criminal Court and also provides that a State cannot be required to act in a manner inconsistent with its obligations under international law regarding the immunities of States not parties to the ICC. Such immunities apply to Prime Minister Netanyahu and other ministers concerned and will have to be taken into consideration if the ICC were to ask us for their arrest and surrender.”
France bases itself on an article of the Rome Statute establishing the ICC (dating from 1998), which specifies that the leaders of the list of countries not recognizing the Court would benefit from immunity. And precisely, Israel, just like the United States, or Russia are part of this list.
This position of Paris remains much less clear than that of other European countries, such as Italy and the United Kingdom, as well as certain G7 countries (Canada and Japan), which declared that they would arrest the Israeli head of government if he set foot on their soil.
In addition to Benjamin Netanyahu, the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants against his former Defense Minister Yoav Gallantas well as against a Hamas leader, Mohammed Deiffor war crimes and crimes against humanity.
Israel claims to have “eliminated” last but the ICC judges believe they do not have sufficient evidence.
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