The chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, Karim Khan, called this week for a swift decision on issuing arrest warrants for a top Hamas official in connection with the Oct. 7 Hamas-led attack on Israel and the Israeli prime minister and defense minister over Israel’s response and conduct of the war in Gaza.
“In light of the worsening situation in Palestine,” Mr. Khan said in a filing, a decision should be made with the “utmost urgency.”
Mr. Khan asked the court in May to issue arrest warrants for three Hamas leaders behind the Oct. 7 Hamas-led attack on Israel on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity. The leaders were Yahya Sinwar, Ismail Haniyeh and Muhammad Deif. He sought the warrants for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel and his defense minister, Yoav Gallant, on the same charges, citing Israel’s prosecution of the war in Gaza after that attack.
In the latest filing, on Monday, Mr. Khan withdrew his request for a warrant for Mr. Haniyeh, citing his death. Mr. Haniyeh was assassinated in Tehran in late July. Mr. Khan said he was working on establishing the death of Mr. Deif, whom the Israeli military said in August had been killed in a strike on Gaza the previous month.
Mr. Khan said in his filing that warrants for Mr. Sinwar, Mr. Deif and the two Israeli ministers were needed to “ensure that they do not obstruct or endanger the investigation or court proceedings” and to “prevent the continuing commission of the crimes alleged.”
The filing conveyed muted frustration, noting that the court had granted multiple requests for submissions and extensions by various parties, sometimes without explaining the relevance of these proposed contributions.
Mr. Khan’s request for a swift decision on the warrants comes at a precarious moment in the war in Gaza. The death toll among Palestinians is nearing 41,000, according to officials in Gaza, who do not distinguish between combatant and civilian casualties. And negotiations have stalled over a cease-fire agreement between Israel and Hamas that would secure the release of about 60 living hostages and the remains of about 35 others still being held in Gaza.
The filing also follows Israeli officials’ announcement last week that autopsies of the bodies of six hostages that the Israeli military discovered in a tunnel under Gaza showed that the hostages had been shot at close range shortly before they were found, compounding demands in Israel that Mr. Netanyahu reach an agreement with Hamas.
The Israeli military on Tuesday released a video revealing the extreme conditions in which those hostages were held before their deaths, underscoring the urgent need for an agreement. Protesters in Israel have taken to the streets repeatedly since the bodies were discovered to demand a hostage deal, and hundreds were out again in Tel Aviv on Tuesday.
Mr. Netanyahu’s office, in a statement on Tuesday, called the prosecutor’s comparison of government ministers who fight “according to the laws of war” with Mr. Sinwar of Hamas “who executes Israeli hostages in cold blood” both “antisemitic” and a “moral disgrace of the first order.”
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