What will happen if the ICC charges Netanyahu with war crimes? - The Guardian
The Israeli government believes that the international criminal court (ICC) in The Hague is about to file war crimes charges against Benjamin Netanyahu and other senior Israeli officials. We can’t know for sure – the ICC has kept its plans close to the vest – but the Israeli prime minister has good reason to worry, and the defenses he has offered so far are unlikely to help him.The ICC chief prosecutor Karim Khan’s most likely target is Netanyahu’s starvation strategy for Palestinian civilians in Gaza. Because the Israeli government has refused to let ICC staff enter Gaza, it will take time for Khan to complete the detailed investigation required to demonstrate other possible Israeli war crimes, such as indiscriminately bombing civilian areas and firing on military targets with foreseeably disproportionate civilian consequences. But the facts surrounding Israel’s obstruction of humanitarian aid are readily available.
During his two recent visits to the region, Khan stressed that, as international humanitarian law requires, Palestinian civilians in Gaza “must have access to basic food, water and desperately needed medical supplies, without further delay, and at pace and at scale”. He warned the Israeli government: “If you do not do so, do not complain when my Office is required to act.” The standard he cited is endorsed by virtually every government in the world including Israel, Britain, the United States, and, as a United Nations observer state, Palestine.
For much of the war Israel has allowed just enough food into Gaza to avoid widespread death, but not enough to prevent pervasive hunger and, in some parts of Gaza according to the USAid administrator, Samantha Power, “famine”. Oxfam calculated that hundreds of thousands of people in northern Gaza were receiving on average only 245 calories a day, about one-tenth of normal requirements. At least 28 children younger than 12 were reported to have died of malnutrition as of 17 April.
Israeli authorities have been blaming anyone but themselves for this deprivation, but the evidence points primarily to Netanyahu’s government.
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Items rejected include anesthetics, cardiac catheters, chemical water quality testing kits, crutches, maternity kits, oxygen cylinders, surgical tools, ultrasound equipment, wheelchairs and X-ray machines. When the UN secretary general, António Guterres, visited the Egyptian side of the Gaza border in March, he saw “long lines of blocked relief trucks waiting to be let into Gaza”. Israel has allowed much-publicized airdrops and sea delivery of food, but they provide only a tiny fraction of what land transport could deliver. }
www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/apr/29/netanyahu-icc-war-crimes