Netherlands summons Israeli envoy over report on years-long campaign against ICC
Amsterdam says it has ‘concerns’ over media claims Israel spied on and pressured International Criminal Court regarding possible arrest warrants for Israeli leaders
The Dutch Foreign Ministry summoned Israeli Ambassador Modi Ephraim for a “clarification” meeting, reports said Wednesday, following media reports last month asserting Israel has waged a nine-year campaign against the International Criminal Court, monitoring its communications and threatening its prosecutor over possible arrest warrants against Israel’s leaders.
Officials in the Netherlands — the country that hosts the Hague-based court — initiated the meeting, several Hebrew media outlets and the UK’s Guardian newspaper reported, adding that the sit-down was revealed by the country’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson in response to questions raised by Dutch lawmakers.
On Tuesday, the Dutch Foreign Ministry spokesperson said that Ephraim was asked to report to the ministry about the accusations. The spokesperson said the country’s “concerns” were discussed but refused to go into more detail due to the confidentiality of diplomatic conversations.
Israel’s Foreign Ministry didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment by The Times of Israel.
As the host of the ICC, the Netherlands is required by a March 2008 agreement to protect the court and its staff, to ensure it is “free from interference of any kind.”
Last month, The Guardian reported that Israel has dedicated immense intelligence and diplomatic efforts to finding out the court’s plans for arrest warrants while attempting to thwart them via multiple channels and tactics, including espionage and threats.
A report outlined then-Mossad chief Yossi Cohen’s alleged campaign of “threats and intimidation” aimed at dissuading then-ICC chief prosecutor Fatou Bensouda from opening a war crimes investigation into Israel.
In a more comprehensive story the same day, The Guardian — in an investigation carried out in conjunction with Israeli-Palestinian publication +972 Magazine and Hebrew-language outlet Local Call — claimed that was just part of a nine-year attempt to dissuade Bensouda and her successor Karim Khan from prosecuting Israeli leaders, which began in 2015 and was still being waged as recently as April of this year.
It cited “more than two dozen current and former Israeli intelligence officers and government officials, senior ICC figures, diplomats and lawyers” familiar with the matter. The report said that alongside the Mossad spy agency, the intelligence-gathering efforts also included the Shin Bet security service; and the Israel Defense Forces’ Military Intelligence Directorate and its signal intelligence branch, Unit 8200.
Israel, having barred ICC staff from accessing the West Bank and Gaza, regularly intercepted their calls and communications with Palestinians, though it never directly tapped ICC officials’ devices, the report said.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was said to have been “obsessed” with information on the matter, which was sent by intelligence bodies to his national security advisers, as well to the Justice Ministry, Foreign Ministry and Strategic Affairs Ministry.
One of the missions was allegedly to find out which specific cases could form part of a future ICC investigation, in order to preemptively open Israeli probes into them and thus be able to claim the court cannot look into them. Under a principle known as complementarity, the ICC cannot accept a case if the state in question is willing and able to credibly investigate the alleged wrongdoing.
Bensouda announced in December 2019 that her office had grounds to open an investigation into Israeli actions in the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem, but that she was seeking a ruling on whether the ICC had jurisdiction.
In the report she published at the time, she accused Israel of at least three disproportionate attacks, willfully killing and injuring civilians, and intentionally attacking Red Cross personnel and institutions during Operation Protective Edge in Gaza in 2014.
In the same report, she accused Hamas and other terrorist organizations of a string of charges, including intentionally attacking Israeli civilians, using Palestinian civilians as human shields, and torture and inhumane treatment.
In February 2021, the pre-trial chamber ruled that Palestine was enough of a state to fall under the ICC’s jurisdiction, and Bensouda began her investigation before stepping down that same month and being replaced by Khan.
Last week, Khan announced that following his investigation, he was seeking arrest warrants for three Hamas leaders as well as Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant. The warrants for the latter two, he said, were being sought on charges of starvation as a method of warfare, willfully causing great suffering or cruel treatment, willfully killing, intentional attacks against civilians, extermination, and persecution. The charges relate to Israel’s response to the devastating October 7 attack led by Palestinian terror group Hamas that killed 1,200 people in the south of the country.
Israel launched a military campaign to destroy Hamas, topple its Gaza regime, and free the 251 hostages who were abducted and taken into Gaza during the Hamas attack.
Lazar Berman and Michael Bachner contributed to this report.
