From the Liveblog of
Thursday, February 27, 2025
ICC prosecutor’s office says Palestinian probe continues with urgency
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The International Criminal Court will urgently continue its investigation into crimes committed in the Palestinian territories, or by Palestinians, the prosecutor’s office says, despite the withdrawal of an arrest warrant for a Hamas leader.
The ICC said yesterday that judges had withdrawn an arrest warrant for Ibrahim al-Masri, also known as Muhammad Deif, following credible reports of his death. Deif had been wanted for atrocities committed during Hamas’s October 2023 attack on southern Israeli communities that triggered the war in Gaza. He had been accused by prosecutors of mass killing, rape and hostage-taking.
He was killed in an Israeli airstrike last year, but Hamas only confirmed his death in late January.
Today, the prosecutor’s office says the probe continues, and it will not hesitate to seek arrest warrants for other suspects “if and when it considers that the threshold of a realistic prospect of conviction has been met.
“Addressing the situation as an urgent priority, the office is conducting an active investigation, and advances multiple and interconnected additional lines of inquiry,” it says.
In November, judges at the ICC also issued arrest warrants for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former defense chief Yoav Gallant for war crimes and crimes against humanity during the war in Gaza. Israel and the US have strongly rejected the allegations and lambasted the court for the move.
The Times of Israel Community.