ICC Issues Arrest Warrants for Top Israeli, Hamas Officials

Welcome back to World Brief, where we’re looking at ICC arrest warrants for top Israeli and Hamas officials, Russia launching a new ballistic missile at Ukraine, and potential criminal charges against former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro.

‘Reasonable Grounds’

The International Criminal Court (ICC) issued arrest warrants on Thursday for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, former Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, and Hamas military chief Mohammed Deif. They stand accused of war crimes and crimes against humanity in relation to Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel and the ensuing Israel-Hamas war in Gaza.

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‘Reasonable Grounds’

For Netanyahu and Gallant, the three-judge panel unanimously wrote that “there are reasonable grounds to believe that both individuals intentionally and knowingly deprived the civilian population in Gaza of objects indispensable to their survival, including food, water, and medicine and medical supplies, as well as fuel and electricity.” These actions, they added, were part of a “widespread and systematic attack against the civilian population of Gaza” and have led to a deadly humanitarian crisis there.

As for Deif, the ICC has accused him of war crimes and crimes against humanity, including murder, hostage-taking, and sexual violence. Around 100 captives are believed to still be held in Gaza. Israeli forces said Deif was killed during an Israeli airstrike on al-Mawasi, in southern Gaza, in July that also killed more than 90 other people, but the court was unable to confirm his death.

The original warrant request, first issued in May, also included senior Hamas officials Yahya Sinwar and Ismail Haniyeh, though Israeli forces have since killed both militants.

The ICC’s ruling sparked fierce backlash on Thursday. Netanyahu’s office called the allegations “absurd and false,” vowing to continue fighting until it achieved total victory, and Gallant slammed the court for “placing Israel and the murderous leaders of Hamas in the same line.” The Israeli Foreign Ministry has previously accused ICC Prosecutor Karim Khan’s request for warrants—and the United Nations more generally—of being antisemitic. In September, the ministry submitted two legal briefs challenging the ICC’s jurisdiction, arguing that it did not provide Israel with the opportunity to investigate the accusations beforehand.

The United States also denounced the ruling and expressed support for Israel’s right to defend itself. Meanwhile, Hamas officials celebrated the ruling as revealing that “international justice is with us and against [Israel],” but they failed to mention the warrant for Deif or the court’s past allegations against Sinwar and Haniyeh.

The warrants’ practical implications may be limited, as neither Israel nor its chief ally, the United States, are signatories of the ICC’s Rome Statute and therefore are not required to enforce the warrants’ provisions. However, the warrants could complicate ongoing cease-fire negotiations by further isolating Israel on the world stage, and they will impact Netanyahu’s and Gallant’s ability to travel to countries that are party to the ICC, which are now legally required to arrest the men should they enter the country. Already, several European countries have said they respect the ICC decision and will comply with the warrants.

Netanyahu joins a small handful of world leaders sought for arrest by the ICC. Most recently, the court issued an arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin in March 2023 for Moscow’s forced kidnapping and relocation of Ukrainian children. Late Libyan leader Muammar al-Qaddafi and ousted Ivorian President Laurent Gbagbo also faced arrest warrants for crimes against humanity for actions during their reigns.

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What We’re Following

Missile deterrence. In a televised address on Thursday, Putin announced that Moscow had launched a new hypersonic, medium-range ballistic missile on a Ukrainian military facility in Dnipro in response to the United States and United Kingdom authorizing Kyiv this week to use their long-range missile systems against limited targets deep inside Russia. Putin warned that he could use the so-called Oreshnik missile system to also strike the military installations of any country whose weapons are used against Russia.

Initial Ukrainian reports suggested that the weapon was an intercontinental ballistic missile, but Putin’s message and U.S. intelligence said it was a medium-range weapon. Although Putin said the missile used in the attack did not carry a nuclear warhead, the Oreshnik is designed to have that capability.

The Oreshnik test “is yet another concerning and worrying development” in the ongoing Russia-Ukraine conflict, U.N. spokesperson Stéphane Dujarric said. Alongside the approval of some Western-supplied long-range weapons, U.S. President Joe Biden reversed a White House policy this week to permit Kyiv to use antipersonnel mines, and Putin lowered Moscow’s nuclear threshold to dissuade further Western involvement.

Coup plot. Brazilian federal police on Thursday recommended charges against former President Jair Bolsonaro and 36 other people for their alleged involvement in a 2022 plot to prevent then-incoming President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s administration from taking power in what police described as a coordinated attempt to “violently dismantle the constitutional state.” Other people accused in the investigation include Bolsonaro’s former spy chief, his former defense ministers, a former minister of justice and public security, a former minister of institutional security, and a former navy commander.

The police will present their findings on Thursday to Brazil’s Supreme Federal Court, which must then decide whether to refer them to Prosecutor-General Paulo Gonet, who will either formally charge Bolsonaro and put him on trial or dismiss the investigation. The former president has repeatedly denied allegations that he attempted a coup despite his supporters storming the capital on Jan. 8, 2023, to protest the election results.

Adani’s second crisis. U.S. prosecutors charged Indian billionaire Gautam Adani with multiple counts of fraud on Wednesday for allegedly orchestrating a $265 million bribery scheme. The indictment accuses Adani, his nephew, and six other executives of paying Indian government officials to obtain contracts expected to yield a $2 billion profit over two decades as well as lying about the payouts to Wall Street investors.

The Adani Group, forced to grapple with its second major crisis in two years, called the accusations “baseless.” But the consequences are already being felt, with the empire’s stocks falling around 20 percent (or more than $30 billion) on Thursday. The scandal also convinced Kenyan President William Ruto to cancel a nearly $2 billion deal that would have given control of the country’s main airport to the multinational conglomerate.

Adani, who is one of the world’s richest people, has tied himself to Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, becoming a key supporter of the leader’s infrastructure development goals. As such, drops in Adani’s shares and other reputational dilemmas could spark a “stress test” for the country’s growth efforts, journalists Anuj Srivas and Kabir Agarwal wrote in Foreign Policy last March.

Social media ban. Australia’s government proposed legislation on Thursday that would ban children under age 16 from using social media. Authorities have floated installing an age verification system that might include biometrics or government identification to enforce the cutoff. Platforms that allow system breaches could be fined up to $32 million. Such a policy would set the highest age limit of any country and mark one of the world’s toughest controls to date. There would be no exemptions for parental consent or preexisting accounts.

“This is a landmark reform,” Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said. “We know some kids will find workarounds, but we’re sending a message to social media companies to clean up their act.” Albanese’s government has argued that excessive social media use risks children’s physical and mental health, specifically related to unhealthy body stigmas and misogynistic content aimed at boys.

Major corporations—such as Meta’s Facebook and Instagram, ByteDance’s TikTok, Elon Musk’s X, and Snapchat—would be affected. Messaging, online gaming, and health- and education-related services, including mental health platform Headspace and Alphabet’s Google Classroom and YouTube, would be excluded. If the legislation is passed, Australia’s eSafety Commissioner would be charged with implementing and enforcing the framework, which would go into effect after one year.

Odds and Ends

Nothing says thank you for your diplomatic and military support like zoo animals—or at least, that appears to be Putin’s thinking. The Kremlin sent North Korea dozens of wild animals on Wednesday to celebrate the two countries’ warming ties, which have reached new heights in recent weeks after Pyongyang deployed thousands of North Korean troops to Russia to help in its war against Ukraine. Among the gifted critters included two brown bears, a lion, several yaks, five cockatoos, 25 pheasants, and 40 mandarin ducks.

The post ICC Issues Arrest Warrants for Top Israeli, Hamas Officials appeared first on Foreign Policy.