In November 2024, the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu; Yoav Gallant, Israel’s former minister of defense; and Hamas military commander Mohammed Deif. All three were charged with war crimes and crimes against humanity. At the time, Israel was claiming that it had already killed Deif, while Hamas denied it; Hamas later confirmed that Israel was right.
The ICC was established by the Rome Statute of 1998, which came into force in 2002. It is considered a court of last resort for victims of genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity, and aggression. Israel and the United States are not signatories to the Rome State, although 125 other nations are. Nevertheless, the ICC has rejected Israel’s insistence that it is not under the jurisdiction of the court, because the alleged actions by Israel that led to the arrest warrants took place not in Israel but in the Palestinian territories.
The United States, especially under the Trump administration, also rejects the jurisdiction of the ICC, and Secretary of State Marco Rubio has pledged to take the court apart “brick by brick.”
Why did the ICC issue arrest warrants against Netanyahu and Gallant? A November 21, 2024 press release issued by the court makes that clear and provides a fair bit of detail about the alleged crimes. Some excerpts:
“The Chamber found reasonable grounds to believe that during the relevant time, international humanitarian law related to international armed conflict between Israel and Palestine applied. This is because they are two High Contracting Parties to the 1949 Geneva Conventions and because Israel occupies at least parts of Palestine. The Chamber also found that the law related to non-international armed conflict applied to the fighting between Israel and Hamas. The Chamber found that the alleged conduct of Mr Netanyahu and Mr Gallant concerned the activities of Israeli government bodies and the armed forces against the civilian population in Palestine, more specifically civilians in Gaza. It therefore concerned the relationship between two parties to an international armed conflict, as well as the relationship between an occupying power and the population in occupied territory. For these reasons, with regards to war crimes, the Chamber found it appropriate to issue the arrest warrants pursuant to the law of international armed conflict. The Chamber also found that the alleged crimes against humanity were part of a widespread and systematic attack against the civilian population of Gaza.
The Chamber considered 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, from at least 8 October 2023 to 20 May 2024. This finding is based on the role of Mr Netanyahu and Mr Gallant in impeding humanitarian aid in violation of international humanitarian law and their failure to facilitate relief by all means at its disposal. The Chamber found that their conduct led to the disruption of the ability of humanitarian organisations to provide food and other essential goods to the population in need in Gaza. The aforementioned restrictions together with cutting off electricity and reducing fuel supply also had a severe impact on the availability of water in Gaza and the ability of hospitals to provide medical care.”
It’s important to note that Joe Biden was still president at the time the arrest warrants were issued, and the Biden administration did not recognize the ICC’s jurisdiction over Israel in this case—in fact, it condemned the arrest warrants. Nevertheless, as a May 2024 Voice of America article explained, the U.S. government has recognized the jurisdiction of the ICC, even over non ICC signatories, in some cases:
“The George W. Bush administration supported the ICC's 2002 investigations into allegations of atrocities committed in the Darfur region of Sudan. The Obama administration supported the ICC's case in Libya in 2011, which accused the government of Moammar Gadhafi of war crimes and crimes against humanity.”
And the Biden administration endorsed ICC investigations where Russia is involved:
“However, while it rejected the ICC’s case against Israeli officials, the Biden administration supported the ICC’s investigations of Russian suspects. Biden has used the word ‘genocide’ to describe Russian atrocities in Ukraine and has described Russian President Vladimir Putin as a war criminal who should be put on trial.”
(The ICC issued an arrest warrant against Vladimir Putin in March 2023.)
The Trump administration has taken a more blanket position concerning the ICC, refusing to recognize its jurisdiction in any cases and, as noted above, calling for its dismantling.
Why does Mayor Mamdani nevertheless want to execute the arrest warrant against Netanyahu when he comes to the United Nations in September? Clearly, because he believes the accusations against the Israeli Prime Minister are true. “He is a war criminal,” Mamdani has said in response to the current controversy.
Regardless of the questions around the ICC’s jurisdiction and the validity of its arrest warrants, there is considerable evidence that its basic charges against Netanyahu are true, and that Mamdani is right.
As we have written several times before, and as a number of Croton residents have also emphasized in letters to The Gazette and articles in the Chronicle, there is a clear consensus among human rights experts that Israel has committed war crimes in Gaza and the West Bank (the latter finding is official from the International Court of Justice) and a growing consensus about genocide.
Thus Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, the Israeli human rights group B’Tselem, and many individual human rights experts—among them leading experts in genocide and Holocaust studies—have concluded that genocide is the technically and legally correct term to apply to Israeli actions.
The controversy over Mamdani’s desire to arrest Netanyahu when he is here in September has been, so far, heavy on political rhetoric and very light on actual evidence. Whether or not Mayor Mamdani is right on the law, leading human rights experts say that he is right on the facts.
Update: Mayor Mamdani in his own words.
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