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Alameen Templeton
Nearly four months have passed and the International Criminal Court has still not responded to its prosecutor’s arrest warrant requests for Israeli and Hamas leaders over the Gaza genocide.
It took just three weeks to approve arrest warrants for Russian President Vladimir Putin after the Ukraine invasion in 2023. But the latest figures show civilian casualties in Ukraine after 19 months of combat are 11,743 ; Gaza’s death toll after 342 days of genocide is 41 118.
The disparities between the response times, especially given the clear urgency of the Gaza genocide and the need to end it, are staggering. They underline just how low Western institution regard human rights when Muslims are involved and how urgently they view them when their “strategic interests” are threatened.
Prosecutor Karim Khan’s request to the court this week to issue the Gaza warrants “with utmost urgency” is a wake-up call: the court’s slow response time demands an explanation.
Bending over backwards
The warrants were “necessary to ensure that they do not obstruct or endanger the investigation or court proceedings, prevent the continuing commission of the crimes alleged and/or the commission of other Rome Statute crimes,” Khan said.
He has bent over backwards when issuing the arrest requests to avoid the usual claims of “bias” by Israel and to insulate himself from time-wasting criticisms.
Khan made sure he weighted the accusations more heavily against Hamas than Israel, by seeking the arrests of three Hamas leaders against two Israelis. He also implicated the Hamas political and military wings in war crimes and crimes against humanity over their one-day attack on Israel on 7 October and their hostage-taking.
By contrast, he completely ignored the Israeli military’s atrocities over the past 11 months, even though it has carried out Israeli politician’s well-publicised orders to the letter.
Khan also presented Hamas in a worse light, levelling more indictments against its leaders than Israel.
Low-hanging fruit
He also ignored plenty of other Israeli war crimes that should be easy to prove, such as the destruction of hospitals and United Nations facilities, the targeted killing of large numbers of aid workers and journalists, and the fact that over 80% of Gaza’s housing has been rendered uninhabitable by Israel’s US-supplied bombs.
And he restricted his investigation to events after October 7 last year, even though the ICC has been investigating Israel’s atrocities in the occupied areas since 2015 when Palestine joined the ICC with observer status.
But, still, the court hesitates to issue the warrants.
Khan stressed on Monday when filing his urgent submission the necessity of issuing the warrants due to “ongoing criminality” and the “worsening situation in Palestine”.
In May, Khan was seeking arrest warrants for Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and his defence minister, Yoav Gallant, along with three Hamas leaders. Now, he is seeking the arrest of just one Hamas leader, Yahya Sinwar, because Israel has already killed the other two – Ismail Haniyeh and Muhammad Deif.
Meanwhile, hundreds of thousands of Palestinians are displaced and facing starvation.
Taking their time
Khan’s filing asserts that Sinwar and Deif are criminally responsible for atrocities including murder, hostage taking, torture, and sexual violence since at least October 7, while Netanyahu and Gallant are criminally responsible for civilian targeting, wilful killing, and using the starvation of civilians as a weapon of war, among other crimes in Gaza since at least October 8. The “at least” language is key: Khan is focused on the genocide, but he is also examining a broader range of abuses over a longer time frame.
The Brookings Institute notes: “The judges may be taking more time for several reasons, including the number of perpetrators and violations, and the many amicus curiae observations (or briefs filed by outside advocates) that states and other groups have submitted for consideration.
“The judges also may want to decide on all the warrants before making an announcement. Consider this hypothetical: if the judges issue warrants for Hamas leaders first and do so for Israeli leaders at a later date, they could face two types of backlash—first, for appearing to be biased against Palestinians and, second, for seeming to capitulate to pressure to include Israelis.”
Judges can take months to issue arrest warrants, but observers say the ICC almost always accept the prosecutors’ request. And, while they may not always result in arrests, they do hold more than symbolic value – the accused are marked as international pariahs and must be arrested if they arrive in a country that is signatory to the ICC.
That means the whole of the EU will be out of bounds, cutting off a crucial support base to Israel, making it harder to coordinate strategy. Issuing warrants also makes it harder for allies to continue lending diplomatic and military aid to Israel, as we saw with the UK’s recent suspension of 30 arms export licences to Israel.
Brookings says Putin has traveled little outside Russia since the arrest warrant and only to ICC nonmembers like China, Kyrgyzstan, and Kazakhstan. ICC member Mongolia has drawn global criticism, including from the US, for welcoming Putin to Ulaanbaatar on September 3.
In court documents released on August 23, the Palestine Chronicle report Khan pressed judges to avoid delays in considering the arrest warrants: “Any unjustified delay in these proceedings detrimentally affects the rights of victims,” Khan said.
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