US Congress threatens to retaliate if ICC orders the arrest of Israeli officials – News

The international court, based in The Hague, Netherlands, has been investigating allegations of war crimes committed by Israeli military forces and Palestinian militias since 2014, and may issue arrest orders for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and others senior Israeli officials for their role in the deaths of civilians in the war against the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas in the Gaza Strip, which has been ongoing for almost seven months.

In a statement, Johnson argued that President Joe Biden’s government must oppose such arrest warrants, which he classified as “shameful” and “illegal”, and “use all available instruments to prevent such an abomination”.

The congressman from the State of Louisiana argued that, if the United States Government does not oppose the alleged orders, “the ICC could create and grant itself unprecedented powers to issue arrest warrants for American political, diplomatic and military leaders” .

The chairman of the Foreign Affairs committee of the House of Representatives, Republican Michael McCaul, told the North American news portal Axios that they are working on a bill to sanction ICC officials who are investigating the United States and its allies in that international court that judges serious violations of international humanitarian law.

White House spokeswoman Karine Jean-Pierre said on Monday that the Biden Administration does not support the ICC’s investigation into Israel’s war against Hamas in the Gaza Strip and considers that the court does not have jurisdiction in this matter. matter.

The ICC, founded in 2002 by the Rome Statute, has more than 123 members, and in 2000 the Government of the then US President, Democrat Bill Clinton, signed its constitutive treaty, but did not submit it for ratification by the Senate (chamber discharge from Congress).

In 2002, the Government of Republican President George W. Bush withdrew its signature and indicated that it would not proceed with the ratification of the Rome Statute.

Congressman Brad Sherman, Democrat of California, was quoted by Axios as saying that “the United States should consider whether to continue to be a signatory” to the Rome Statute.

“We need to think about discussing with some of the countries that have ratified [o Estatuto] and see if they want to support this institution”, he added.

Already on Sunday, during a telephone conversation, Benjamin Netanyahu had asked Joe Biden for help to prevent the ICC from issuing arrest warrants that could target him, as well as the Israeli Defense Minister, Yoav Gallant, and the head of state- Major of the Army, Herzl Halevi.

On April 26, Netanyahu wrote on social media that “the threat to detain military personnel and leaders of the only democracy in the Middle East and the only Jewish state in the world is scandalous” and would create a “dangerous precedent”.

Today, the Israeli Prime Minister returned to the charge against the ICC, given the possibility of it issuing arrest warrants this week for alleged war crimes against Palestinian civilians.

“This court has no authority over the State of Israel. The possibility of issuing arrest warrants for war crimes for IDF (Israel Defense Forces) commanders and state leaders is a scandal on a historic scale,” he declared, in a recorded speech.

Netanyahu considered the measure another obstacle to the war that Israel is waging in the Gaza Strip and reiterated that, despite the ICC’s attempts, the Rafah zone, in southern Gaza, will be invaded as soon as the civilian population is removed and that the objectives of the war will be achieved.

According to the head of the Israeli executive, the purpose of the ICC is to “paralyze the ability of the State of Israel to defend itself”, which he classified as “an unprecedented anti-Semitic hate crime”.

In 207 days of the Israeli war in the Gaza Strip, the official death toll now exceeds 34,500, more than 75% of which are women and children, according to the local government, and the UN already accused, in mid-March, Israel of being to commit a war crime in the Palestinian enclave by depriving the civilian population of food, while other organizations, such as Amnesty International, denounced “indiscriminate” bombings of the civilian population.

“Eighty years after the Holocaust, the international organizations that arose to prevent another Holocaust are considering denying the Jewish state its right to defend itself. From who? Of those who broke out and continue to work openly to commit another genocide. How absurd, what a distortion of justice and history,” continued Netanyahu.

On October 7 last year, Israel declared a war in the Gaza Strip to “eradicate” Hamas after it, hours earlier, carried out an attack of unprecedented proportions on Israeli territory, leaving 1,163 dead, most of them civilians.

The Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) — in power in Gaza since 2007 and classified as a terrorist organization by the United States, the European Union and Israel — also took 250 hostages, around 130 of whom remain in captivity and 34 have since died, according to the most recent assessment of the Israeli authorities.

Sources from the Israeli Government, which the daily Haaretz did not identify, said on Monday that the arrest warrants could be delivered this week to Netanyahu, Gallant and Halevi, and that other responsible parties would not be affected.

According to the Israeli newspaper, both the Ministry of Justice and Army lawyers are trying to prevent this from reaching that point, and Israel’s allies such as the United States are allegedly interceding with the ICC Attorney General, Karim Khan, to to postpone or even prevent the issuance of such court orders.

Netanyahu also today asked other world leaders to speak out “firmly” against any action by the ICC.