Netanyahu: New Dreyfus trial the arrest warrant of the International Criminal Court – which countries can be arrested

After more than a year of war in the Gaza Strip, he caused it to rage in Israel, proceeding yesterday Thursday (21.11. 24) issuing arrest warrants for Prime Minister and former Defence Minister Joav Galland, who considers war crimes and crimes against humanity responsible. In addition to the warrants against Benjamin Netanyahu and Yoav Galand the International Criminal Court issued another warrant, for the same crimes, against Mohammed Deif, the head of Hamas military arm, whose invasion on 7 October 2023 into the southern part of Israeli territory was followed by large-scale military operations that caused tens of thousands of deaths and huge disasters since in the Palestinian enclave. “No scandalous anti-Israeli decision will prevent us – especially me – from continuing to defend our country in every way,” Mr Netanyahu assured, in a speech to his fellow citizens on Thursday night. Earlier, the head of the Israeli government undermined the “anti-Semitic” action. He presented himself as the victim in a new “dreifus trial”, referring to the historical, multi-prone case of judicial error against a French-Jewish captain who had shaken France in the late 19th century and early 20th, when a military-political espionage scandal broke out, until his acquittal and restoration. The antisemitic decision of the international court in The Hague is a modern Dreyfus trial, and it will end the same way. — Benjamin Netanyahu – What states are Netanyahu in danger of being arrested? The issuing of warrants, also described as “scandalous” by American outgoing president Joe Biden, if anything, will drastically limit the movements that the two Israeli leaders can do. As any of the 124 states that are parties to the court are, in theory at least, obliged to arrest them once they enter its territory, although dozens of countries, including Russia, the USA, as well as China, do not recognise the jurisdiction of the ICC. It is noted, however, that the Rome Statute (the founding treaty of the International Criminal Court of The Hague) has not been signed by Israel, nor by certain major powers, including the US, Russia, China and India. While the ICC cannot impose arrests, the signatory states are obliged to arrest those facing warrants. The ICC has issued arrest warrants against former Sudan president Omar al Bashir, Saif Gaddafi, son of Libyan late leader Moammar Gaddafi, and more recently, Vladimir Putin, for whom an arrest warrant had been issued after the invasion of Ukraine, but the Russian president traveled to Mongolia a few months ago and was not arrested. Reactions For her part, Hamas praised the issuing of arrest warrants against Israeli leaders, seeing in evolution “an important step towards justice”, without commenting on the arrest warrant issued at the same time against the leader of his own military arm. The arrest warrants issued by the ICC are “unprecedented”, “justified” but also “delayed”, ruled Reid Brody, a lawyer specialized in war crimes cases. The ICC explained that there are “reasonable causes” to believe that Mr. Netanyahu and Galland are “criminally responsible” especially for the war crime of using famine as a method of war, crimes against humanity, murder crime, persecution crime and other inhuman acts. The two men, always according to the ICC, “willfully and deliberately deprived the civilian population of goods absolutely necessary for its survival”, especially food, water, medicines, fuel, electricity. This situation led to ‘living conditions calculated to cause the destruction of part of the civilian population in Gaza’, according to the court, which nevertheless notes that no evidence has yet been collected ‘for the crime against the humanity of extermination’. The arrest warrant against Mohammed Daif was issued even though, according to the Israeli army, the person concerned was killed in a 13 July bombing in the southern Gaza Strip. Hamas denies he’s dead. “This means the voice of the victims was heard,” Yael Vias Gwirsman, a lawyer representing the families of 300 Israelis, victims of the Hamas attack on October 7, 2023. “Whatever the ICC implies, there is no equivalence – none – between Israel and Hamas,” U.S. President Biden opposed. The outgoing head of European diplomacy Joseph Borrell on his own side noted that arrest warrants should be ‘respectably respected and executed’, although some EU members criticised them, especially Hungary, for referring to ‘a shame on the international judicial system’. In Israel, the ICC announcement caused surprise, while in the Gaza Strip it was accepted rather fatally.