https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/world-69038760
Lines of careful legal language add up to a devastating series of allegations against the three most prominent leaders of Hamas and Israel’s prime minister and defence minister.
A panel of judges at the ICC now will consider whether to issue the arrest warrants. States signed up to the ICC statute would then be obliged to arrest the men if they had the chance.
The 124 signatories do not include Russia, China and the US. Israel has not signed either. But the ICC has ruled that it does have legal authority to prosecute criminal acts in the war because the Palestinians are signatories.
The ICC prosecutor alleges that Israel’s prime minister and defence minister committed crimes including starvation of civilians as a weapon of war, murder, extermination, and intentional attacks on civilians.
If the arrest warrants are issued, it would mean that the head of Israel’s government, Benjamin Netanyahu, its longest-serving prime minister, would not be able to visit his Western allies without risking arrest.
The one exception, all important for him, would be the United States.
The same would apply to Yoav Gallant, Israel’s defence minister. The words he used when announcing that Israel would besiege Gaza have been frequently quoted by critics of Israel’s conduct. Two days after the Hamas attacks on 7 October Gallant said: “I have ordered a complete siege on the Gaza Strip. There will be no electricity, no food, no fuel, everything is closed… we are fighting human animals and we are acting accordingly.”
The ICC’s prosecutor Karim Khan, who is a British King’s Counsel, writes in his statement that “Israel has intentionally and systematically deprived the civilian population in all parts of Gaza of objects indispensable to human survival”.
The war crimes that Khan says Hamas committed include extermination, murder, hostage-taking, rape and torture.
Two of the accused Hamas leaders – Yahya Sinwar, the head of Hamas in Gaza, and Mohammed Deif, (referred to by the ICC as Mohammed al-Masri) the commander of the Hamas military wing, the Qassam Brigades – are believed to be hiding somewhere inside Gaza.
Israel has been trying to kill them for the last seven months, so an arrest warrant does not add much to the pressures on them. But the other Hamas leader facing a warrant is Ismail Haniyeh, the head of the Hamas political bureau.
He travels widely in the region and has meetings with senior Arab and Iranian leaders. Haniyeh is based in Qatar, which like Israel, did not sign the Rome Statute that set up the ICC.
一行行谨慎的法律措辞加起来构成了对哈马斯三位最著名领导人以及以色列总理和国防部长的一系列毁灭性指控。
国际刑事法院的一个法官小组现在将考虑是否签发逮捕令。签署国际刑事法院规约的国家将有义务在有机会的情况下逮捕这些人。
124 个签署国不包括俄罗斯、中国和美国。以色列也没有签署。但国际刑事法院裁定，由于巴勒斯坦是签署国，它确实有法律权力起诉战争中的犯罪行为。
国际刑事法院检察官指控以色列总理和国防部长犯下的罪行包括以平民饥饿作为战争武器、谋杀、灭绝和故意袭击平民。
如果签发逮捕令，就意味着以色列政府首脑、任期最长的总理本雅明·内塔尼亚胡将无法访问他的西方盟友，否则将面临被捕的风险。
对他来说，唯一重要的例外是美国。
以色列国防部长约阿夫·加兰特也是如此。他宣布以色列将围攻加沙时所说的话经常被以色列行为的批评者引用。10 月 7 日哈马斯袭击发生两天后，加兰特说：“我已下令对加沙地带进行全面围攻。没有电、没有食物、没有燃料，一切都关闭……我们正在与人类动物作战，我们正在采取相应的行动。”
国际刑事法院检察官、英国御用大律师卡里姆·汗在声明中写道：“以色列有意、有计划地剥夺加沙各地平民对人类生存必不可少的物品。”
汗说哈马斯犯下的战争罪行包括灭绝、谋杀、劫持人质、强奸和酷刑。
两名被指控的哈马斯领导人——加沙哈马斯头目叶海亚·辛瓦尔和哈马斯军事分支卡桑旅指挥官穆罕默德·迪夫——据信藏匿在加沙某处。
过去七个月，以色列一直试图杀死他们，因此逮捕令不会给他们带来太大压力。但面临逮捕令的另一名哈马斯领导人是哈马斯政治局局长伊斯梅尔·哈尼亚。
他经常在该地区旅行，并与阿拉伯和伊朗高级领导人会面。哈尼亚在卡塔尔，卡塔尔与以色列一样，没有签署建立国际刑事法院的《罗马规约》。
