Times of Israel, April 30:
Israel is making a concerted effort to head off feared plans by the International Criminal Court to issue arrest warrants against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other top Israeli officials, an Israeli government source told The Times of Israel on Sunday.
The first source said the major focus of the feared ICC allegations will be that Israel “deliberately starved Palestinians in Gaza.”
The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNWRA) reported on March 13, 2020 that the number of children killed in Gaza has been higher than in four years of world conflict.
That same day, Israel struck a food distribution center in Gaza, killing one member of UNWRA and injuring 23 others.
AMMAN, 13 March 2024 – At least one UNRWA staff member was killed and another 22 were injured when Israeli Forces hit a food distribution centre in the eastern part of Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip.
“Today’s attack on one of the very few remaining UNRWA distribution centres in the Gaza Strip comes as food supplies are running out, hunger is widespread and, in some areas, turning into famine. Every day, we share the coordinates of all our facilities across the Gaza Strip with parties to the conflict. The Israeli Army received the coordinates including of this facility yesterday,” said UNRWA Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini.
The International Criminal Court was established in Hague, Netherlands in 1998. The vote was 120-7, with 21 Abstentions. Israel and the United States both voted Against (ER: Against the court’s establishment).
The International Criminal Court (ICC) investigates and, where warranted, tries individuals charged with the gravest crimes of concern to the international community: genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity and the crime of aggression.
Israel voted Against the establishment of the Court because of the inclusion of language regarding the transference of population into an occupied territory.
July 20, 1998. Israel has reluctantly cast a negative vote. It fails to comprehend why it has been considered necessary to insert into the list of the most heinous and grievous war crimes the action of transferring population into occupied territory. The exigencies of lack of time and intense political and public pressure have obliged the Conference to by-pass very basic sovereign prerogatives to which we are entitled…
The United States voted Against because they did not want to submit to an International Court, and acts of aggression usually involve two parties. (A closer review of the military actions of the United States reveals that the basis for our Wars are often due to “false flag” attacks against the United States, which Israel has often participated in, including September 11, 2001 and the attack on the USS Liberty).
The United States does not accept the concept of jurisdiction in the Statute and its application over non-States parties. It voted against the Statute. Any attempt to elaborate a definition of the crime of aggression must take into account the fact that most of the time it was not an individual act, instead wars of aggression existed.
Although the United States is not a member of the International Criminal Court, Benjamin Netanyahu has been lobbying the Biden Adminstration anyway according to the Times of Israel on April 28.
Netanyahu was leading a “nonstop push over the telephone” to prevent an arrest warrant, focused especially on the administration of US President Joe Biden, Caspit reported.
Haaretz analyst Amos Harel reported that the Israeli government was working under the assumption that the ICC’s prosecutor, Karim Khan, may this week issue warrants for the arrest of Netanyahu, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant and IDF Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken arrived in Israel on April 30 and spoke of a hostage deal. Times of Israel, May 1: Blinken lands in Israel for talks with Netanyahu, Gallant amid push for hostage deal.
According to Haaretz on April 30, Netanyahu said that if the ICC issued an arrest warrant against him, it would be an “Antisemitic Hate Crime.”
It is unclear if the ICC will also include charges of Genocide by Israel against Palestinians. The ICC’s Description of Genocide is as follows:
First, the crime of genocide is characterised by the specific intent to destroy in whole or in part a national, ethnic, racial or religious group by killing its members or by other means: causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; or forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.
The ICC has also investigated allegations against Hamas. Prosecutor Karim Khan visited Israel in December 2023, and issued a statement reported by Times of Israel:
Khan said in a written statement issued after his visit that he witnessed “scenes of calculated cruelty” at locations of the October 7 attacks. During the visit, he spoke to family members of Israeli victims and called for the immediate and unconditional release of hostages taken by Hamas and other terror groups.
It is my opinion that the United States should not interfere with the functioning of the International Criminal Court. The United States should cooperate with the Court and provide to them any intelligence requested by the Court.
Charles Wright
Source
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