ICC rejects Israeli appeal of Netanyahu, Gallant arrest warrants

The International Criminal Court in The Hague dismissed on Friday Israel’s appeal against arrest warrants for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for alleged war crimes in the war against Hamas in Gaza.

The judges ruled that “the issue, as framed by Israel, is not an appealable issue,” AFP reported.

Israel had requested in May that the court nix the warrants while it deliberated a separate challenge over whether the ICC had jurisdiction in the case. Israel is not a party to the Rome Statute, which created the International Criminal Court.

On July 16, the court rejected the request lodged in May, saying there was “no legal basis” for it. A week later, Israel asked for leave to appeal that ruling. On Friday, the court dismissed the appeal in a complex, 13-page ruling, according to AFP.

The wider challenge of the ICC’s jurisdiction is still being weighed by the court’s judges, the report added.

In June, Washington sanctioned two of the three pre-trial chamber judges involved in the decision for signing off on the warrants, which were requested by the court’s chief prosecutor, Karim Khan.

Khan is on a leave of absence pending an investigation into allegations of sexual misconduct, including allegedly trying to stop a victim from coming forward by saying that it would harm his prosecution of Israel.

He was previously sanctioned by Washington for requesting the arrests of Netanyahu and Gallant. According to reports, the sanctions significantly hampered his work and that of the court.

“Now Khan has since been suspended, but his preposterous arrest warrants and his patently false charges against Israel have not been removed,” Netanyahu lamented last month, adding, “They should be removed and removed immediately for justice and for truth to prevail.”

The premier denounced Khan’s arrest warrants against him and Gallant, which accuse the two of using starvation as a weapon of warfare, as well as deliberately targeting civilians, as lacking any factual basis.

“Israel has let in more than two million tons of aid into Gaza. That’s one ton of aid per person and, by the way, Hamas stole much of it,” Netanyahu said, noting that the IDF has also “sent millions of texts and phone messages to Palestinian civilians urging them to get out of harm’s way.”