2024-11-22
13 分钟The international criminal court has issued arrest warrants for the Israeli prime minister, his former defence minister and a Hamas leader. Julian Borger reports. Help support our independent journalism at theguardian.com/infocus
This is the Guardian.
From the Guardian, this is a Today in Focus Extra edition with me, Hannah Moore.
Today, the International Criminal Court has issued an arrest warrant for the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
According to the icc, the crimes alleged against the pair include using starvation as a weapon of war.
There are also international arrest warrants for former Defence Minister Yoav Gallant and Mohammed De, the military commander of Hamas, for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity in the Gaza war.
Julian Borger, you're the Guardian's senior international correspondent.
The news has come out this afternoon that the International Criminal Court has issued these three arrest warrants.
What does this actually mean?
So in the case of Benjamin Netanyahu and the former Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, they are about Israeli operations in Gaza and in particular the obstruction of the supply of humanitarian relief to Gaza.
The three judge panel really focus on that issue, and they clearly have ruled that the prima facie evidence is that the obstruction of aid to Gaza has been deliberate.
In the case of the one Hamas arrest warrant that has been issued, it is for the October 7 last year attack in which 1200 Israelis, mostly civilians, were killed.
In the case of Mohammed Deif, the chamber ruled that it could not yet confirmed that he was dead and that the court would continue to gather information on whether he was dead or not.
Right.
The Israeli government says that they killed him in an airstrike in July.
In July, yes.
In the case of the other two Hamas suspects who were originally named by the prosecutor, Yahya Sinwar and Ismail Haniyeh, they are both confirmed dead.
So what will this practically mean?
What powers does the ICC have to actually go after these three men?
The ITC itself does not have enforcement mechanisms.
This enforcement mechanism is the obligation of signatories to the Rome Statute.