RAMALLAH, Nov 22 : The Palestinian Authority and militant group Hamas both welcomed on Thursday (Nov 21) the International Criminal Court’s arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former defence minister over the Gaza war.
“The State of Palestine welcomed the decision” to issue the warrants against Netanyahu and ex-defence minister Yoav Gallant, the Palestinian Authority said in a statement published by official news agency Wafa.
The ICC said it had found “reasonable grounds” to believe Netanyahu and Gallant bore “criminal responsibility” for the war crime of starvation as a method of warfare, as well as the crimes against humanity of murder, persecution, and other inhumane acts.
“The ICC’s decision represents hope and confidence in international law and its institutions,” the Palestinian statement said, urging ICC member states to sever “contact and meetings” with Netanyahu and Gallant – who was sacked by the Israeli prime minister earlier this month.
The statement from the Palestinian Authority, which is based in the occupied West Bank, did not make any mention of the warrant also issued Thursday for Hamas’s military chief Mohammed Deif over war crimes and crimes against humanity.
Israel said it had killed Deif in Gaza in July, but Hamas has not confirmed his death.
The group, in its own statement about the ICC decision, similarly did not mention Deif.
Hamas said the warrants for the Israeli leaders were “an important step towards justice and can lead to redress for the victims in general”.
“But it remains limited and symbolic if it is not supported by all means by all countries around the world”, the group’s political bureau member Bassem Naim said.
Asked by AFP about the Deif warrant, a Hamas official who wished to remain anonymous said there was “no comparison between the criminal occupier and the victim”.
The Gaza war, triggered by Hamas’s Oct 7, 2023 attack on Israel, resulted in the deaths of 1,206 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.
Some 250 hostages were seized during the attack, with 97 still held captive in Gaza including 34 the Israeli military says are dead.
Israel’s retaliatory military campaign has killed at least 44,056 people in more than 13 months of war, most of them civilians, according to figures from the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip’s health ministry which the United Nations considers reliable. — (AFP)
