Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday warned the International Criminal Court against potentially issuing arrest warrants against Israeli leaders and commanders as a result of its investigation into the war in Gaza, saying that doing so would leave an \u201cindelible stain\u201d on the concept of international justice and law. <\/p>\n
Netanyahu\u2019s comments, in a televised speech for the opening ceremony of Holocaust Remembrance Day, appeared to be a reference to Israeli media reports that several government officials, including the prime minister, are concerned that such arrest warrants might be imminent. <\/p>\n
While the ICC, based in The Hague, has declined to comment about any arrest warrants that could come out of its investigation into the war in Gaza, rumors have swirled in the Israeli press in recent weeks that the court could target Netanyahu and other key Israeli officials. <\/p>\n
In his speech Sunday, Netanyahu emphasized that the ICC was \u201cfounded as a consequence of the Holocaust\u201d and should not attempt to \u201cundermine\u201d Israel\u2019s fundamental right to self-defense. <\/p>\n
He argued that any arrests would restrict Israel\u2019s ability to defend itself, calling it a \u201cdistortion of justice and\ufeff<\/strong> history.\u201d <\/p>\n \u201cEven if Israel is forced to stand alone, we will stand alone, and we will continue to strike our enemies powerfully until victory. Even if we have to stand alone, we will continue to fight human evil,\u201d Netanyahu added. <\/p>\n In a post on X in February, ICC Prosecutor Karim Khan said his office has \u201can ongoing and active investigation into the situation in the State of Palestine,\u201d adding that his office was \u201cactively investigating any crimes allegedly committed. Those who are in breach of the law will be held accountable.\u201d <\/p>\n Israel is not a member of the ICC and rejects the court\u2019s jurisdiction. That has not previously stopped the court from investigating its actions in the occupied Palestinian territories. <\/p>\n Fatou Bensouda, a former ICC prosecutor, spent five years conducting a \u201cpainstaking preliminary examination\u201d in which she concluded she was \u201csatisfied that war crimes have been or are being committed in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip.\u201d But no arrests were made, and Bensouda left office in 2021. <\/p>\n Since the Hamas terror attack on Israel on October 7 that left 1,200 people dead and some 250 taken hostage, both Hamas and Israel have been accused of war crimes. Since Israel launched its devastating military response to that attack, more than 34,000 Palestinians have been killed, according to the Ministry of Health in Gaza. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday warned the International Criminal Court against potentially issuing arrest warrants against Israeli leaders and commanders as a result of its investigation into the war in Gaza, saying that doing so would leave an \u201cindelible stain\u201d on the concept of international justice and law. Netanyahu\u2019s comments, in a televised <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2794,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-2793","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2793","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2793"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2793\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2794"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2793"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2793"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2793"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}