-OpEd-
A video shows Sama al-Khatib, a five-year-old Palestinian girl, fleeing the Kamal Adwan hospital in Beit Lahia, in the northern Gaza Strip, due to Israeli bombing.
“They bombed us and we don’t know where we are going,” Sama says. Her mother, Nisreen Abu Atta al-Khatib, 35, is walking behind Sama, carrying her 18-month-old son Moeen. Al-Khatib and Moeen were being treated in the hospital for injuries they suffered when Israeli fighter jets bombed their house in Beit Lahia. The strike killed three of Al-Khatib’s daughters, May, a university student, and Halla and Jana, who were schoolchildren. Their 80-year-old grandmother, Badria Ayoub, was also killed.
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Al-Khatib’s family had fled to Rafah after her sister, Sherin, and three of her children were killed in the Jabaliya refugee camp in northern Gaza at the beginning of the war. She has been moving with her children from shelter to shelter, before returning to her home in Beit Lahiya. But the Israeli military once again invaded Jabaliya and Beit Lahiya earlier this month. And the Israeli military bombed her home once again, forcing her to move to a shelter in the Sheikh Radwan neighborhood west of Gaza City.
Israel is determined to exterminate the Palestinians; to pursue and kill them, as if it is still living the first shock of the Oct. 7 attack.
Shock for Israel
Israel’s shock was compounded on May 20, when the International Criminal Court’s chief prosecutor Karim Khan announced that he was seeking arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, as well as three Hamas leaders, over allegations of war crimes and crimes against humanity related to the Gaza war.
Despite reports that arrest warrants would be issued against Israeli officials, the announcement drew outrage from Israeli and American officials, who blasted Khan and have begun a pressure campaign against the ICC. The Israeli government and its opposition have also accused Khan of antisemitism.
Yet the racism of the Israeli discourse, as well as the sense of superiority and the arrogance of Netanyahu and Israeli officials, can be seen in their refusal to be equated with three Hamas leaders (Yehya Sinwar, Mohammed Deif and Ismail Haniyeh). And they completely ignore the fact that the court is an international legal institution and a prestigious professional body.
It is surprising that the ICC did not seek arrest warrants for Hertz Halevi or Benny Gantz.
In a commentary, Haaretz journalist and intelligence expert Yossi Melman wrote that the ICC’s decision was “stupid and shameful,” asking “How can you even compare the elected officials [even if they are hated] in a democratic country to the leaders of a murderous terrorist organization? And unfortunately, from a political point of view, the decision will strengthen Netanyahu’s position in the opinion polls.”
Israeli War Cabinet Minister Benny Gantz said that the country’s military “adheres to international law” and that “putting the leaders of a country that entered the battle to protect its citizens in the same level as bloodthirsty [terrorists] is moral blindness and a violation of its duty and power to protect its citizens.”
In a statement, the B’Tselem human rights group said the decision “signals Israel’s rapid decline into a moral abyss. The international community is signaling to Israel that it can no longer maintain its policy of violence, killing and destruction without accountability.” And some Israeli commentators critical to the Netanyahu government have called the decision “blackest in the history of Israel”; “a pure Israeli manufacturing”; or “a black mark Netanyahu and his government brought on themselves and on us.”
A flawed decision
In Khan’s comments, it appears there was some sort of trade-off or compromise regarding the arrest warrants; it appears the decision is flawed and in need of a lot of scrutiny. His request included seven challenges against the Israeli officials and eight against the Hamas leaders.
While the charges against Hamas leaders included allegations of torture and ill-treatment of the detainees, they did not cite the torture of Palestinians detained. That is despite a report from leading Israeli daily Haaretz in March that 27 Gaza detainees have died in military detention facilities in Israel since the beginning of the war.
Khan’s measure could be a starting point to hold Israeli political and military officials accountable.
It is surprising that the ICC prosecutor did not seek arrest warrants for Israeli Army Chief of Staff Hertz Halevi, who approves the general policy and military plans of the army, or for Gantz, who was was Israel’s Chief of Staff during the 2014 Gaza war and committed war crimes, according the United Nations Human Rights Council.
Khan did not mention Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian territory, and called the Israel-Hamas war a “conflict,” ignoring a UN Fact-Finding Committee report that described what had happened in the Palestinian territories as “an illegal occupation.”
An end to Israeli impunity?
As for the Palestinians, they hope that this decision increases Israel’s isolation. And that Israel will no longer escape accountability. Khan’s measure could be a starting point to hold Israeli political and military officials accountable for crimes they committed over many years against Palestinians.
Yet justice for Palestine will not be achieved in the foreseeable future, unless serious investigations and trials are conducted at all levels of power. Such investigations must monitor Israeli terrorism against Palestinians, which is practiced by the occupation and the apartheid system in the West Bank and Gaza.
Such practices have been well documented by Israeli, Palestinian and international rights groups.
