Netanyahu ‘now officially a wanted man’ after ICC warrant: Amnesty chief
Netanyahu is “now officially a wanted man” after the ICC’s decision to issue arrest warrants for the Israeli leader and his former defence minister, Amnesty International said.
“Prime Minister Netanyahu is now officially a wanted man,” said Amnesty Secretary General Agnes Callamard.
“ICC member states and the whole international community must stop at nothing until these individuals are brought to trial before the ICC’s independent and impartial judges.”
125 countries ‘obligated’ to abide by ICC arrest warrants
These arrest warrants will now be sent to all the member states of the ICC, 125 now with Ukraine, the latest member, and then all these countries have a legal obligation to arrest these people.
So in any country of these 125 member states, when they appear there, these countries, the authorities there have the obligation to detain them and hand them over to The Hague.
I have to say, this has happened not happened in all cases. We have the memory of when President Putin travelled to Mongolia recently. Mongolia also being a member state, they didn’t detain Putin and hand him over to the ICC. So it all depends on the countries. The Netherlands here, the host country of the ICC, has already said they will. But of course there is this very strict obligation and a lot of countries will obey.
According to the Rome statute of which the ICC is based, there is no precedent of a trial without any of the suspects present, so the ICC will do everything it can to obtain these arrests.
There are 15 people still at large who have been who have been sought by the ICC – some of them for more than a decade – but they haven’t appeared here at the court in The Hague for all this time. It’s very essential for the ICC to prosecute war criminals when they are actually present here.
Analysis: Israelis likely to rally around Netanyahu in wake of ICC arrest warrant
https://www.cnn.com/2024/11/21/middleeast/international-criminal-court-issues-arrest-warrant-for-israeli-prime-minister-intl/index.html
https://www.cnn.com/world/live-news/israel-gaza-netanyahu-11-2024-intl/index.html
When the ICC first announced its request for an arrest warrant for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu six months ago, most people in Israel didn’t think chief prosecutor Karim Khan would ever actually follow through.
The prosecutor’s allegations of war crimes and crimes against humanity were widely derided by the Jewish state and only seemed to knit Israelis more tightly together - in the face of what many considered a biased opinion.
Since then, Netanyahu’s popularity in Israel has slowly grown from its dismal standing in the wake of Hamas’ brutal October 7 attack last year.
On the streets of Jerusalem, despite the most profound and perhaps consequential move against its political leaders, people were shrugging off allegations that the prime minister bears “criminal responsibility for war crimes” including “starvation as a method of war” and “crimes against humanity of murder, persecution and other inhumane acts.”
One woman told CNN she supports the prime minister against the “biased” accusations.
Part of the country readily believes the Prime Minister’s Office statement Thursday claiming the ICC has taken an “antisemitic” decision. They are likely to band behind Netanyahu, because the country as a whole will likely feel they’re under siege and misunderstood.
There will be very few people who will dare openly and loudly throw their support behind the ICC, whatever they think about Netanyahu, his deadly Gaza war tactics, or the eye popping Palestinian death toll. Above all, they see the ICC as another international institution that, like the UN, doesn’t understand them and what it takes to survive in this region.
For those outside Israel who believe Khan’s principled legal challenge is going to change the mood in the country, that shift will not bear out overnight, not in the near term - and possibly not for a generation.
Well it's important enough for CNN to start reporting on the conflict again, live page back open instead of no news for days.
