ICC prosecutor says Israeli objections to Netanyahu warrant should be rejected
Karim Khan submits response to appeals against warrants, dismisses claim International Criminal Court does not have jurisdiction over Israelis

The International Criminal Court’s chief prosecutor has told judges that Israeli objections to the investigation into the 15-month war in Gaza should be rejected.
Karim Khan submitted his formal response late Monday to an appeal by Israel over the Hague-based court’s jurisdiction after judges issued arrest warrants last year for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and his former defense minister Yoav Gallant, accusing them of crimes against humanity in connection with the war in Gaza.
The Israeli leader called the arrest warrant “a black day in the history of nations” and vowed to fight the allegations. The US has also rejected the warrants and last week voted to apply sanctions on the court over the issue.
Individuals cannot contest an arrest warrant directly, but the State of Israel can object to the entire investigation. Israel argued in a December filing that there were serious procedural deficiencies in the decision by Khan to seek arrest warrants for Netanyahu and Gallant.
In two appeals, it firstly addressed Israel’s contention that Khan should have provided new notification of his investigation into the allegations regarding the prosecution of the war in Gaza following Hamas’s October 7, 2023, invasion and massacre that started the war. He instead relied on notification issued in 2021 of an investigation the court had initiated at the time.
The second appeal dealt with Israel’s claim that the ICC lacks jurisdiction over Israelis, that Jerusalem could look into allegations against its leaders on its own, and that continuing to investigate Israelis was a violation of state sovereignty.

In Khan’s combined 55-page response, he said the Rome Statute, the treaty that established the ICC, allowed it to prosecute crimes that take place in the territory of member states, regardless of where the perpetrators hail from. Gaza, as part of a state of Palestine, is a member state.
The judges are expected to render a decision in the coming months.
The allegations against Netanyahu and Gallant related in particular to charges that the two leaders had committed the war crimes of directing attacks against the civilian population of Gaza and of using starvation as a method of warfare by hindering the supply of international aid to Gaza.
Khan also alleged that the two committed the crimes against humanity of murder, persecution, and other inhumane acts as a result of the restrictions they allegedly placed on the flow of humanitarian aid to Gaza.
Israel has strongly rejected the substance of the allegations, insisting that it has funneled massive amounts of humanitarian aid through the crossings along the Gaza border and that any problems with the distribution of that aid to the Palestinian civilian population were a result of inefficient operations by the aid organizations on the ground, difficulties arising from the ongoing conflict in the territory, and the looting of aid by Hamas and other terrorist organizations.
Israel has also rejected allegations that it targets civilians, insisting that civilian casualties caused by the operation have resulted in large part due to Hamas’s tactic of embedding its fighters and installations within Gaza’s civilian infrastructure.
Netanyahu fired Gallant in November last year as part of a cabinet reshuffle to expand his ruling coalition and amid disagreements over the war and Gallant’s objection to a law granting blanket exemptions from military service to ultra-Orthodox Israelis.

The war in Gaza was sparked on October 7, 2023, when thousands of Hamas-led terrorists stormed southern Israel to kill some 1,200 people and take 251 hostages. Israel’s counteroffensive, aimed at toppling the Hamas terror government of Gaza and securing the release of the hostages, has killed more than 46,000 people, according to the Hamas-run health ministry. The figure cannot be independently verified and does not distinguish between civilians and combatants, of whom Israel says it has killed at least 18,000 in Gaza as of November, in addition to about 1,000 inside Israel during the onslaught.
The ICC has said its decision to pursue warrants against the Israeli officials was in line with its approach in all cases, based on an assessment by the prosecutor that there was enough evidence to proceed, and the view that seeking arrest warrants immediately could prevent ongoing crimes.
The ICC also issued an arrest warrant for Hamas military chief Mohammed Deif, who Israel says was killed by an IDF strike in Gaza back in July. While Khan had initially sought arrest warrants for Hamas leaders Ismail Haniyeh and Yahya Sinwar as well, the two were killed before the warrants were issued in November.

The ICC was established in 2002 as the permanent court of last resort to prosecute individuals responsible for the world’s most heinous atrocities — war crimes, crimes against humanity, genocide, and the crime of aggression.
The court’s 125 member states include Palestine, Ukraine, Canada, and every country in the European Union, but dozens of countries don’t accept the court’s jurisdiction, including Israel, the United States, Russia, and China.