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93 Countries Back ICC Probe Into Israeli War Crimes in Gaza

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Original article by JON QUEALLY republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). 

Palestinian child, injured in the Israeli attack on Abu Aisha family house is taken to Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir al-Balah, Gaza on June 14, 2024.
 (Photo by Ashraf Amra/Anadolu via Getty Images)

A joint statement calls on “all States to ensure full co-operation with the Court for it to carry out its important mandate of ensuring equal justice for all victims of genocide, war crimes, [and] crimes against humanity.”

Ninety-three nations on Friday, all them state parties to the Rome Statute that created the International Criminal Court, reiterated their support for the ICC as it assesses an application for arrest warrants of high level Israeli government officials accused of perpetrating war crimes in Gaza.

The 93 countries—including Canada, Bangladesh, Belgium, Ireland, Afghanistan, Costa Rica, Chile, Germany, France, Mongolia, Mexico, New Zealand, and scores of other—cited separate ICC statements defending its mandate for independence and upheld in their joint statement “that the Court, its officials and staff shall carry out their professional duties as international civil servants without intimidation.”

Though neither nation is named in the joint statement, both the United States and Israel have publicly condemned ICC chief prosecutor Karim Khan for his May 20 arrest warrant applications for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant over alleged “war crimes” and “crimes against humanity” in the Gaza Strip.

Khan also submitted arrest warrants for Hamas leaders Yahya Sinwar, Mohammed Diab Ibrahim Al-Masri, and Ismail Haniyeh for their alleged roles in the October 7 attack on southern Israel. Following Khan’s announcement in May, U.S. President Joe Biden said, “Whatever this prosecutor might imply, there is no equivalence—none—between Israel and Hamas. We will always stand with Israel against threats to its security.”

In April it was reported that the U.S. government was working behind the scenes to block the ICC from issuing any arrest warrants targeting Israel officials. Neither Israel nor the U.S. is party to the Rome Statute, though the United Nations has recognized the ICC’s jurisdiction over the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT), where the alleged war crimes by the occupying power, Israel, took place.

After Khan made his application for warrants, White House spokesperson Karine Jean-Pierre said, “We’ve been really clear about the ICC investigation. We do not support it.” On June 4, Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives, along with 42 Democrats, passed a measure that would sanction ICC officials if the arrest warrants for any Israeli officials were approved or carried out.

Balakrishnan Rajagopal, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the right to adequate housing, was among those who applauded Friday’s public statement.

Rajagapol thanked the signatory nations “for defending the ICC and standing up against the bullies, including the relics from the U.S. Senate whose idea of engaging with the world is to use threats,” a possible reference to Sen. Lindsay Graham (R-S.C.) who denounced Khan’s applications as “outrageous,” applauded the House approval of sanctions, and vowed further punishment for the ICC.

Such punitive measures and high-profile threats directed at the ICC appeared to be the exact kind of intimidation Friday’s joint pledge of support is responding to.

“The ICC, as the world’s first and only permanent international criminal court, is an essential component of the international peace and security architecture,” the statement reads. “We therefore call on all States to ensure full co-operation with the Court for it to carry out its important mandate of ensuring equal justice for all victims of genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity and the crime of aggression, grave crimes that threaten the peace, security and well-being of the world.”

With their show of unified support for the ICC and its mandate, the countries said they aim to “contribute to ending impunity for such crimes and preventing their recurrence while defending the progress we have made together to guarantee lasting respect for international humanitarian law, human rights, the of law and the enforcement of international criminal justice.”

Original article by JON QUEALLY republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). 

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Continue Reading93 Countries Back ICC Probe Into Israeli War Crimes in Gaza

Biden Claims Israel Isn’t Starving Gazans. Rights Groups Say ‘It Is Clear as Day’

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Original article by JAKE JOHNSON republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).

Palestinians wait in line to receive food distributed by charitable organizations amid Israeli attacks in Deir Al-Balah, Gaza on May 28, 2024. (Photo: Hassan Jedi/Anadolu via Getty Images)

“The fact that Israel is using starvation as a weapon of war in Gaza is not in contention,” said a Human Rights Watch researcher.

U.S. President Joe Biden said in an interview published Tuesday that he does not believe the Israeli government is using starvation as a weapon of warfare in Gaza, contradicting the findings of leading human rights organizations that have documented Israel’s deliberate obstruction of food aid as Palestinians die of malnutrition.

“No, I don’t think that,” Biden said in response to TIME magazine’s Washington bureau chief Massimo Calabresi and editor-in-chief Sam Jacobs, who noted some have “alleged that Israel is intentionally using starvation of civilians as a method of warfare.”

The president, who has approved more than 100 arms sales to Israel during its eight-month assault on the Gaza Strip, acknowledged that Israel’s military has “engaged in activity that is inappropriate” and that “Palestinians have suffered greatly.”

But he stopped well short of the conclusions reached by Oxfam International, Human Rights Watch (HRW), and the International Criminal Court, which recently applied for arrest warrants against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for their role in the “starvation of civilians as a method of warfare” and other war crimes.

The U.S. Agency for International Development has also determined that Israel has unlawfully impeded the delivery of humanitarian assistance to Gaza, leading to a “deterioration of food security and nutrition in Gaza [that] is unprecedented in modern history.”

“The fact that Israel is using starvation as a weapon of war in Gaza is not in contention. It is clear as day,” Hiba Zayadin, a researcher at HRW, wrote in response to Biden’s TIME interview, pointing to her group’s December report that found the Israeli military was “deliberately blocking the delivery of water, food, and fuel, while willfully impeding humanitarian assistance, apparently razing agricultural areas, and depriving the civilian population of objects indispensable to their survival.”

“The evidence is even stronger today,” Zayadin added, citing HRW’s April report that focused specifically on the Israeli military’s starvation of Gaza children. Dozens of Palestinian kids, some just months old, have died of malnutrition since October, a figure that is almost certain to grow as Israel’s bombing campaign and ground offensive in Rafah continue.

The World Food Program said Wednesday that unless Israel’s assault on Gaza ends and desperately needed humanitarian aid is allowed to flow, more than a million people in the occupied enclave “are expected to face death and starvation… by mid-July.”

Humanitarian groups and experts—including an outspoken former U.S. State Department official—have argued that by continuing to arm Israel and provide it with diplomatic cover on the world stage, the Biden administration is complicit in Gaza’s increasingly dire hunger crisis.

“This is not just turning a blind eye to the man-made starvation of an entire population, it is direct complicity,” Josh Paul, who resigned from the State Department in October over the administration’s support for Israel’s assault on Gaza, told The Independent last month.

In a speech on the floor of the U.S. Senate earlier this week, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) displayed photos of emaciated children as he explained his decision to boycott Netanyahu’s upcoming speech to Congress.

“Blocking humanitarian aid and creating the conditions for famine is not only an act of extreme cruelty—using starvation as an act of war—but it is a violation of both American and international law,” Sanders added. “It is a war crime.”

Original article by JAKE JOHNSON republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).

Continue ReadingBiden Claims Israel Isn’t Starving Gazans. Rights Groups Say ‘It Is Clear as Day’

Group Files New ICC Complaint Over Journalists Killed by Israel in Gaza

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Original article by BRETT WILKINS republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). 

Palestinian journalists stage a protest to draw attention to Palestinian press killed while covering the war in the Gaza Strip on February 26, 2024 in Rafah.
 (Photo: Ahmad Hasaballah/Getty Images)

Reporters Without Borders says it has “reasonable grounds for thinking that some of these journalists were deliberately killed and that the others were the victims of deliberate IDF attacks against civilians.”

The press freedom group Reporters Without Borders announced Monday that it has filed a third complaint at the International Criminal Court alleging “war crimes against journalists in Gaza,” where over 100 media professionals have been killed by Israeli forces since October 7.

Paris-based Reporters Without Borders (RSF) is asking the ICC to investigate the Israel Defense Forces’ (IDF) killing of eight Palestinian journalists and wounding of another between December 15 and May 20 and, more broadly, the over 100 media workers slain during the course of Israel’s 234-day assault on Gaza.

RSF said it “has reasonable grounds for thinking that some of these journalists were deliberately killed and that the others were the victims of deliberate IDF attacks against civilians” and accused Israel of “an eradication of the Palestinian media.”

“Impunity endangers journalists not only in Palestine but also throughout the world,” RSF advocacy and assistance director Antoine Bernard said in a statement. “Those who kill journalists are attacking the public’s right to information, which is even more essential in times of conflict. They must be held accountable, and RSF will continue to work to this end, in solidarity with Gaza’s reporters.”

Journalists in RSF’s latest complaint include Mustapha Thuraya and Hamza al-Dahdouh, freelancers working for Al Jazeera in Rafah when they were killed by a targeted Israeli drone strike on their vehicle on January 7, and Hazem Rajab, who was injured in the strike.

According to RSF:

The complaint also cites the cases of Hadaf News website reporter Ahmed Badir, who was killed by an airstrike at the entrance to Shuhada al-Aqsa Hospital in Deir al-Balah on 10 January; Kan’an News Agency correspondent Yasser Mamdouh, who was killed near Al-Nasser Hospital in Khan Yunis on 11 February; Ayat Khadoura, an independent video blogger killed by an Israeli strike on his home on 20 November shortly after posting a video; Yazan Emad Al-Zwaidi, a cameraman with the Egyptian satellite TV news channel Al Ghad, who was killed on 14 January when an Israeli strike hit the group of civilians he was with in Beit Hanoun; Ahmed Fatima, a journalist with the Al Qahera News TV channel, who was killed during a bombardment in Khan Yunis on 13 November; and Rami Bdeir, a reporter for the Palestinian New Press media outlet, who was killed during an Israeli bombardment in Khan Yunis on 15 December.

Another advocacy group, the Committee to Protect Journalists, previously condemned what it called an “apparent pattern of targeting journalists and their families,” noting cases in which media workers were killed while wearing press insignia and after being threatened by Israeli officials.

Monday marked the ninth anniversary of United Nations Security Council Resolution 2222, which concerns the protection of journalists in conflict zones and “emphasizes the responsibility of states to comply with the relevant obligations under international law to end impunity and to prosecute those responsible for serious violations of international humanitarian law.”

Last month, Francesca Albanese, the U.N. special rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territories, said: “Killing journalists is a war crime that undermines the most basic human rights. Justice starts with the cessation of injustice.”

Original article by BRETT WILKINS republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). 

Continue ReadingGroup Files New ICC Complaint Over Journalists Killed by Israel in Gaza

‘War Crimes Are War Crimes’: Biden Rebuked for Decrying ICC Bid to Arrest Israeli Leaders

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Original article by BRETT WILKINS republiahed from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).

International Criminal Court Prosecutor Karim Khan delivers an address before Venezuela’s National Assembly in Caracas on April 22, 2024.
 (Photo: Pedro Rances Mattey/Anadolu via Getty Images)

“Biden will feel he must attack the ICC because it directly implicates his own decision-making to repeatedly defend atrocities and their authors,” said one critic.

Human rights defenders around the world on Monday accused U.S. President Joe Biden of double standards and worse after he condemned a decision by the International Criminal Court’s top prosecutor to pursue arrest warrants for Israeli and Hamas leaders for alleged crimes committed during the October 7 attacks and subsequent obliteration of Gaza.

Karim Khan, the ICC’s chief prosecutor, said the court has formally applied for arrest warrants targeting two Israeli and three Palestinian officials. Khan is seeking to arrest Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for alleged “crimes of causing extermination, causing starvation as a method of war, including the denial of humanitarian relief supplies, [and] deliberately targeting civilians in conflict.”

Khan said charges against Hamas leaders Yahya Sinwar, Ismail Haniyeh, and Mohammed Deif include “extermination, murder, taking of hostages, rape, and sexual assault in detention.”

A panel of ICC judges will determine whether to issue arrest warrants for any of the suspects.

Biden blasted the effort to arrest Netanyahu and Gallant as “outrageous.”

“Let me be clear: Whatever this prosecutor might imply, there is no equivalence—none—between Israel and Hamas,” the president said in a statement. “We will always stand with Israel against threats to its security.”

Secretary of State Antony Blinken condemned what he called the ICC’s “shameful… equivalence of Israel with Hamas.”

Critics were quick to pounce on what some called Biden’s hypocritically disparate responses to the ICC’s pursuit of arrest warrants for Israeli leaders and for Russian President Vladmir Putin over his invasion of Ukraine.

“What’s outrageous is Biden’s utter disregard for victims of war crimes,” said Mark Kersten, an assistant professor of international law at the University of the Fraser Valley in Abbotsford, British Columbia. “But let’s be clear: Biden will feel he must attack the ICC because it directly implicates his own decision-making to repeatedly defend atrocities and their authors.”

Sarah Leah Whitson, executive director of Democracy for the Arab World Now, said that “there’s certainly no quantitative equivalence between Hamas and Israeli officials in terms of the sheer number of war crimes and crimes against humanity, including humans murdered, homes demolished, hospitals bombarded, journalists executed, aid workers snuffed, land stolen, children starved, men tortured… I could go on and on.”

Furthermore, “‘equivalence’ between two actors has zero bearing on who should be arrested and prosecuted,” Whitson added. “The ICC has prosecuted individuals for a single offense irrespective of how it compares to other crimes committed by other actors at the same time.”

Former Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis—who heads the leftist Democracy in Europe Movement 2025—said on social media that “Biden just declared the International Criminal Court null and void because it dared pursue Israel’s war crimes which Biden is actively and enthusiastically enabling.”

“In the tradition of George W. Bush, the U.S. president has declared the U.S. a rogue state,” he added.

According to Israeli officials, 1,139 Israeli soldiers and civilians and foreign nationals were killed during the Hamas-led attacks on October 7. An unknown number of the victims were killed by so-called “friendly fire.”

Israel’s retaliatory war on Gaza—which is the subject of a genocide case before the International Court of Justice (ICJ)—has killed at least 35,562 Palestinians, mostly women and children, while wounding nearly 80,000 others, according to Palestinian and international officials. At least 11,000 other Palestinians are missing and presumed dead and buried beneath the rubble of hundreds of thousands of damaged or destroyed homes and other buildings.

Approximately 2 million of Gaza’s 2.3 million people have been forcibly displaced and at least hundreds of thousands of others are facing growing famine in the northern strip and widespread starvation throughout the besieged coastal enclave as Israeli soldiers and settlers continue to block aid shipments and attack both humanitarian workers and Palestinians desperately trying to receive food, water, medicine, and other necessities. Nearly 1 million Palestinians have fled Rafah as Israeli forces invade and bombard Gaza’s southernmost city.

The United States—which provides Israel with billions of dollars in military aid and diplomatic cover—had reportedly been working with Israel on how to thwart the ICC’s effort to arrest Israeli leaders. Meanwhile, a dozen Republican U.S. senators earlier this month threatened retaliation against the tribunal if it issued arrest warrants for Israelis.

“Target Israel and we will target you,” the lawmakers wrote in a letter that drew rebuke from Khan’s office.

Under the American Service Members’ Protection Act—also known as the Hague Invasion Act—the president is authorized to use “all means necessary and appropriate” including military intervention to secure the release of American or allied personnel held by or on behalf of the ICC.

U.S. and Israeli officials often note that neither country is party to the Rome Treaty that established the ICC. However, the court “has jurisdiction in relation to crimes committed on the territory of Palestine, including Gaza,” as well as “over crimes committed by Palestinian nationals inside or outside Palestinian territory.”

Under then-Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda, the ICC in 2021 launched a formal investigation into alleged Israeli war crimes and apartheid in the illegally occupied West Bank, East Jerusalem, and Gaza.

Israeli and Hamas officials reacted angrily on Monday to Khan’s move, with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu calling the application “absurd” and the “new antisemitism” and Hamas spokesperson Sami Abu Zuhri lamenting that it equates “the victim with the executioner.”

South Africa—which filed the ICJ case now joined by over 30 nations—welcomed Khan’s announcement, with President Cyril Ramaphosa asserting that “the law must be applied equally to all in order to uphold the international rule of law, ensure accountability for those that commit heinous crimes, and protect the rights of victims.”

Original article by BRETT WILKINS republiahed from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).

Continue Reading‘War Crimes Are War Crimes’: Biden Rebuked for Decrying ICC Bid to Arrest Israeli Leaders

ICC applies for arrest warrants for Netanyahu and Gallant

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Original article republished from peoples’ dispatch under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 (CC BY-SA) license.

(Photo: Ministerie van Buitenlandse Zaken)

ICC Chief Prosecutor Karim Khan issued warrants for the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister, as well as for three Hamas leaders

On May 20, International Criminal Court Chief Prosecutor, Karim Khan, issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant. Netanyahu and Gallant stand accused of “war crimes and crimes against humanity,” including but not limited to “starvation of civilians as a method of warfare,” “wilfully causing great suffering, or serious injury to body or health,” and “intentionally directing attacks against a civilian population.” 

Khan also issued warrants for Hamas leaders Yahya Sinwar, Mohammed Al Dief, and Ismail Haniya. They also stand accused of crimes against humanity, including rape and sexual violence, extermination, murder, and taking hostages.

The move, though largely symbolic, has created an international stir. International forces supporting Israel have reacted with outrage, including US President Biden, who said in a statement that “The ICC prosecutor’s application for arrest warrants against Israeli leaders is outrageous.”

“Let me be clear: whatever this prosecutor might imply, there is no equivalence—none—between Israel and Hamas. We will always stand with Israel against threats to its security,” Biden said. 

The Palestinian resistance movements and largely movements for Palestinian liberation issued different reactions. Mustafa Barghouti, secretary-general of the Palestinian National Initiative, was largely positive in his reaction, stating, “We consider this to be the first step towards condemning the crimes of genocide committed by the rulers and army of Israel against the Palestinian people in Gaza and holding them accountable for committing these crimes according to international law and international humanitarian law.”

Hamas denounced the actions against its own leaders. “The Public Prosecutor should have arrest and detention orders against all officials from the occupation leaders who gave orders, and soldiers who participated in committing crimes,” the resistance organization stated. “The Hamas movement strongly denounces the attempts of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court to equate the victim with the executioner by issuing arrest warrants against a number of Palestinian resistance leaders, without a legal basis, in violation of the international conventions and resolutions that gave the Palestinian people and all the peoples of the world under occupation the right to resist the occupation in all forms, including armed resistance, especially as stipulated in Article 51 of the United Nations Charter.”

Others have similarly criticized the move based on the equivalency Khan draws between Hamas and Israel, especially since many have pointed out inconsistencies in accusations made against Hamas forces of rape. Meanwhile, Israeli forces have many credible accusations of rape made against them. Khan has a history of siding with imperialist forces during his time as ICC prosecutor, including excluding US troops from a probe into war crimes in Afghanistan.

Original article republished from peoples’ dispatch under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 (CC BY-SA) license.

Continue ReadingICC applies for arrest warrants for Netanyahu and Gallant