The prosecutor of the International Criminal Court said on Monday that he had requested arrest warrants for war crimes and crimes against humanity for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel and the leaders of Hamas. Here’s a closer look at the court and the warrants.
The prosecutor is accusing both sides of war crimes.
The court’s prosecutor, Karim Khan, said in a statement that he was applying for arrest warrants for Yahya Sinwar, Mohammed Deif and Ismail Haniyeh of Hamas because he had “reasonable grounds to believe” that they were responsible for war crimes and crimes against humanity, which included “the killing of hundreds of Israeli civilians” in the Hamas-led Oct. 7 attacks in Israel, and the taking of at least 245 hostages.
Mr. Khan said that the Hamas officials “planned and instigated the commission of crimes” on that day, and that they “have acknowledged their responsibility for those crimes” through their actions, such as personal visits to hostages shortly after their kidnapping.
The prosecutor cited accusations of murder, extermination, hostage-taking, and acts of sexual violence. He also said he had reasonable grounds to believe the officials were responsible for acts of torture and cruel treatment.
Mr. Khan also said that he had requested arrest warrants for Mr. Netanyahu and Israel’s defense minister, Yoav Gallant, because there were reasonable grounds to believe that they bore responsibility for war crimes and crimes against humanity, including the starvation of civilians as a weapon of war and “intentionally directing attacks against a civilian population.”
Mr. Khan said that these crimes were committed “as part of a widespread and systematic attack against the Palestinian civilian population.” He also said that in his office’s view, some of the crimes “continue to this day.”
“International law and the laws of armed conflict apply to all,” he said. “No foot soldier, no commander, no civilian leader — no one — can act with impunity. Nothing can justify willfully depriving human beings, including so many women and children, the basic necessities required for life. Nothing can justify the taking of hostages or the targeting of civilians.”
The International Criminal Court was set up under a 1998 treaty, but the U.S. and Israel didn’t sign.
The International Criminal Court is an international court that has jurisdiction to prosecute people for war crimes, genocide and crimes against humanity.
It was established in 2002 as a standing body to investigate those crimes under a 1998 treaty known as the Rome Statute. Previously, the United Nations Security Council had set up ad hoc tribunals to address atrocities in specific places, like the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda.
The I.C.C. is based in The Hague, a Dutch city that has long been a center for international law and justice. It is separate from the International Court of Justice, an international tribunal also in The Hague which is an arm of the United Nations and handles civil disputes between countries. The latter is currently weighing a claim brought by South Africa that Israel is conducting a genocide in Gaza. Israel has strongly denied the accusation.
Many democracies joined the International Criminal Court, including close American allies like Britain. The court has recognized Palestine as a member since 2015.
But neither Israel nor the United States is a member. The United States, which conducts numerous military operations abroad, has taken the position that the court should not exercise jurisdiction over citizens from countries that are not parties to the treaty.
That position, however, has been tested by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Russia is not a member, but Ukraine is. Last year, the court issued arrest warrants for President Vladimir V. Putin and another Russian official, saying they bore individual criminal responsibility for the abduction and deportation of Ukrainian children in the wake of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. After a lengthy internal debate, President Biden ordered the U.S. government to share evidence of Russian war crimes with the court.
The arrest warrants would have the immediate effect of limiting travel for the targets.
Mr. Khan’s request for warrants must still be approved by judges on the court. If they are issued, the warrants would put both the Israeli officials and Hamas leaders at risk of being arrested and sent to The Hague for trial if they travel to one of the court’s 124 member nations, which include most European countries.
Presumably they would not go to countries that would arrest and extradite them, in which case they may never stand trial. But the effective travel restrictions would function as a kind of punishment in and of themselves.
“Israel will be more isolated after this action,” said Stephen Rapp, a former U.S. ambassador at large who headed the Office of Global Criminal Justice in the State Department. He said that if the arrest warrants go ahead, the named officials “will find it hard to travel to two-thirds of the world.”
The warrant request represents one of the harshest condemnations of Israel’s strategy in its war against Hamas and its campaign’s toll on Gaza’s civilian population. But Mr. Rapp said that Israel “has proved itself sort of immune to international pressure,” and it was unclear whether the prosecutor’s actions would have an impact on its strategy in Gaza.
The I.C.C. cannot try defendants in absentia. It also has no police force, relying on member states to arrest fugitives and transfer them to The Hague.
In the case of Mr. Putin, the judges approved the request within weeks.
The prosecutor is accusing Israeli officials of intentionally targeting civilians and using starvation as a weapon.
Mr. Khan said that he believed Israeli officials were responsible for intentionally attacking civilians, but he largely focused on allegations of starvation, and extermination or murder “including in the context of deaths caused by starvation.”
For months, Israel has been criticized for the scale of civilian deaths, but Israeli officials have blamed Hamas for the toll, accusing the armed group of using civilians as a shield, its fighters deliberately hiding among and beneath noncombatants.
Under the laws of war, it can be lawful to pull the trigger knowing that some civilian bystanders are likely to be killed, so long as the harm to innocents is deemed to be necessary and proportionate to striking a legitimate military target.
Mr. Rapp, the former U.S. ambassador, said that prosecutors’ greater emphasis on accusations that Israeli officials have restricted the transfer of critical supplies of food and medicine to civilians may be because that issue is “relatively simple” compared to second-guessing targeting decisions.
“The humanitarian rules are very strict,” he said, adding that a state which conducts a military operation in an area of which it controls the perimeter must ensure that civilians have the means of survival.
“If you look at the black letter of international law in this area, it is actually very, very clear,” he said.
Israel’s foreign minister denounced the warrant applications.
Neither Mr. Netanyahu nor Mr. Gallant immediately commented on the decision.
Israel’s foreign minister, Israel Katz, said that he had ordered the immediate establishment of a special committee aimed at fighting the decision, which he said “was intended first and foremost to tie the hands of the State of Israel and deny it the right of self-defense.”
The “scandalous” prosecutor’s decision, he said, “is a frontal attack without restraint on the victims of Oct. 7 and our 128 hostages in Gaza.”
In a statement on Telegram, Hamas condemned the warrant requests against its leaders. It said that the prosecutor should demand the arrest not only of Mr. Netanyahu and Mr. Gallant but of all “leaders, officers and soldiers who participated in crimes against the Palestinian people.”
