Israel to appeal ‘absurd, baseless’ ICC arrest warrants for Netanyahu, Gallant
Jerusalem will challenge court’s action against Israeli nationals as contravening the Oslo Accords; PMO announces Netanyahu met with US senator to discuss steps against ICC
Jeremy Sharon is The Times of Israel’s legal affairs and settlements reporter
The Prime Minister’s Office announced on Wednesday that Israel would appeal the International Criminal Court’s decision to issue arrest warrants against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former defense minister Yoav Gallant.
In a brief statement to the press, the PMO said that although Israel rejects the ICC’s jurisdiction, it had informed the court it would submit an appeal which it asserted would demonstrate “how absurd and “without foundation” the arrest warrants were.
It also requested that implementation of the arrest warrants be delayed. Even though the arrest warrants have already been issued, the court does have the discretion to suspend the warrants while an appeal is pending.
The PMO also announced that Netanyahu met with US Republican Senator Lindsey Graham in his office in Jerusalem on Wednesday, where the senator updated the prime minister on “a series of steps that he is advancing in the US Congress against the ICC and against countries that have cooperated with it.”
The incoming Trump administration is said to be weighing sanctioning the ICC over its actions against Netanyahu and Gallant.
The ICC issued arrest warrants against Netanyahu and Gallant last week on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity over their prosecution of the war in Gaza.
The allegations relate in particular to charges that the two leaders committed the war crime of starvation as a method of warfare by hindering the supply of international aid to Gaza; the crimes against humanity of murder, persecution and other inhumane acts; and of directing attacks against the civilian population of Gaza.
“The State of Israel rejects the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court, and the legitimacy of the arrest warrants that were issued against the prime minister and the former defense minister,” the PMO said.
“Israel’s appeal notice exposes in detail just how absurd the issuance of arrest warrants was and how it lacks any factual or legal basis.”
The statement added that if the ICC were to reject the appeal, it would only “underline to Israel’s friends in the US and the world how biased the International Criminal Court is against Israel.”
Israel, along with numerous allies, submitted several challenges to the legal proceedings initiated by ICC Prosecutor Karim Khan back in May.
Jerusalem challenged the ICC’s jurisdiction over Israeli nationals by noting that Israel is not party to the court, and insisting that even though the “State of Palestine” was admitted to the court, that did not confer upon the ICC jurisdiction over Israelis.
Israel argued that the terms of the Oslo Accords signed by Israel and Palestinian representative bodies explicitly deny any Palestinian entity legal jurisdiction over Israeli nationals.
Since the ICC works by party members delegating their jurisdiction to the court to prosecute suspected violations of the Rome Statute, the court’s founding charter, the Palestinians never had the necessary jurisdiction to transfer to the ICC in the first place, Israel argued.
Israel itself is not a member of the ICC.
The court rejected Israel’s claim that the court should have given Israel notification of its investigation into the conduct of the war, although it said Israel could appeal the court’s jurisdiction after its decision to issue the arrest warrants.
The ICC’s Pre-Trial Chamber I, which is hearing the case, ruled that such challenges to jurisdiction could only be made after the issuance of arrest warrants, and said therefore that Israel’s challenge at the time was premature. Israel’s appeal will therefore revisit this issue.
Jerusalem’s other challenge is focused on Khan’s failure to provide notification to Israel about his investigation into the alleged crimes committed during the Gaza war.
This notification is a crucial component of the Rome Statute since it is designed to give the country under investigation the ability to conduct its own investigations into the same charges alleged by the prosecutor and have its own justice system deal with the allegations.
This is a critical aspect of how the ICC is supposed to operate, in that the court cannot exercise its jurisdiction in a country that has an independent justice system and is willing to investigate the allegations being made by the ICC.
The Pre-Trial Chamber said in its decision last week that notification had been given previously of an ICC investigation into Israel’s conduct in Gaza during the 2014 war, the 2018-19 Gaza border protests and its settlement policy in the West Bank.
The court ruled that this notification was sufficient even for the investigations into Israeli conduct in the war that erupted after the October 7 Hamas invasion and atrocities since “the parameters of the investigation in the situation have remained the same.”
Israel is, however, entitled to appeal both decisions, as it has now announced it will do.
