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Jul 26. () –
The British government, led by Labour’s Keir Starmer, will not object to the request for an arrest warrant issued by the International Criminal Court (ICC) in mid-May against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity in the Gaza Strip.
The ICC prosecutor’s office has requested the issuance of arrest warrants not only against Netanyahu, but also against his defense minister, Yoav Gallant, and several senior members of the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas). Under former Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, London had assured that it would raise objections to the arrest of the Israelis.
Now, a Downing Street spokesman has confirmed to Sky News that Starmer’s government would not go ahead with Sunak’s initiative, as it believes it is a matter for the courts to decide. The government is therefore advocating staying out of it and neither supporting nor questioning the ICC’s case against Netanyahu.
“The government firmly believes in the rule of law and the separation of powers,” said the source, who urged the body to take decisions independently; thus contradicting the position of Sunak’s government, which said that the ICC was “not useful” in achieving a ceasefire, the release of hostages or the delivery of humanitarian aid in the Gaza Strip.
ICC Chief Prosecutor Karim Khan said in his request that the arrest warrants for Netanyahu and Gallant stem from “reasonable grounds” to believe that they “bear criminal responsibility” for war crimes and crimes against humanity “committed in the territory of the State of Palestine, in the Gaza Strip, at least since October 8.”
Following London’s announcement that it would object to the request, the ICC initially set a deadline of 12 July for the submission of its legal appeal, although this deadline was later extended to 26 July.
The Rome Statute, the cornerstone of the ICC, establishes that this court cannot judge any accused ‘in absentia’, so it requires that the individual in question physically sit in the dock and answer in person for the crimes of which he is accused. Detention is, therefore, an essential condition for going to trial.
However, the court does not have its own institution capable of carrying out arrests, and delegates this responsibility to member states. Currently, 124 countries have signed the Rome Statute, and they do not include Israel or the United States, its main international supporter.
Netanyahu has made only one trip abroad since the Hamas attacks on October 7, specifically the one he made this week to the United States, at the invitation of conservative Republicans in Congress, and during which he met with US President Joe Biden, amid criticism from several Democratic congressmen.
Hamas launched a series of attacks on Israeli territory in early October, killing nearly 1,200 people and taking nearly 240 hostages. The Israeli army then launched a retaliatory offensive against the Gaza Strip, which has already left nearly 39,200 Palestinians dead and more than 90,400 wounded.
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