US House votes to sanction ICC over Israel arrest warrants
Nearly all House Republicans, several Democrats back legislation punishing the ICC for going after Netanyahu and Gallant, but measure will face bumpier path through Senate
The US House of Representatives voted on Thursday to sanction the International Criminal Court to protest its decision to issue arrest warrants for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former defense minister over Israel’s campaign against the Hamas terror group in Gaza.
Lawmakers voted 243 to 140 in favor of the “Illegitimate Court Counteraction Act,” which would urge sanctions on any ICC official or entities backing The Hague who advance “any effort to investigate, arrest, detain or prosecute any protected person of the United States and its allies.”
The sanctions include blocking or revoking visas and prohibiting US property transactions.
The legislation states that the US and Israel are not signatories to the Rome Statute that created the ICC, which accordingly has no jurisdiction over their conduct.
Forty-five Democrats joined 198 Republicans in backing the bill. No Republicans voted against the measure, but Kentucky Representative Thomas Massie abstained, saying afterward that the House “should not get involved in disputes between other countries.”
The House vote, one of the first since the new Congress was seated last week, underscored strong support for Israel’s government among President-elect Donald Trump’s fellow Republicans, who now control both chambers in Congress.
Trump will be sworn in on January 20 for a second term as president.
“America is passing this law because a kangaroo court is seeking to arrest the prime minister of our great ally, Israel,” Florida Republican Brian Mast, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said in a House speech before the vote.
The breakdown of the vote was largely the same as the one on similar House legislation last year that failed to advance out of the Senate, though, the number of “Nos” was slightly lower amid absences due to former president Jimmy Carter’s funeral and the wildfires in Los Angeles.
The legislation still needs to be okayed in the Senate, where it will have a harder time passing, although newly appointed Republican majority leader John Thune has promised swift consideration of the act so Trump can sign it into law shortly after taking office.
In order to be passed in the Senate, Republicans will need to recruit around seven Democrats to vote with them, which may be difficult given that the outgoing Biden administration has to date refrained from backing such punitive measures against the court, not wanting to delegitimize the international body whose sanctions against Russian President Vladimir Putin it supports.
Congressional Republicans have been denouncing the ICC since it issued arrest warrants for Netanyahu and his former defense minister Yoav Gallant on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity over the war in Gaza.
The warrants effectively bar Netanyahu and Gallant from entering the ICC’s 124 member states. Neither Israel nor the US are members of the court.
The charges against the two men allege that they 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.
Chief prosecutor Karim Khan also alleged that they 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 are 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.
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 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 Republican-led House passed the act seeking to sanction the ICC in June, but the measure was never taken up in the Senate, which at the time was controlled by a Democratic majority.
