ICC arrest warrants: The US must distance itself from an increasingly toxic Israel

Six long months have passed since chief prosecutor Karim Khan applied to the pre-trial chamber of the International Criminal Court (ICC) for arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, former Defence Minister Yoav Gallant, and three Hamas leaders, at least two of whom are now dead.

In that time, at least 9,000 more Palestinians in Gaza have been killed under Israel’s ferocious bombing and unrelenting starvation, with the total official death toll approaching 45,000, with The Lancet calculating it could be several times higher.

That this issue took six months for the three judges of the pre-trial chamber to decide, when the average wait is two months, is a testament to the unprecedented pressure that the highest court of international law has come under.

In contrast, it took just three weeks for the ICC to issue arrest warrants for Russian President Vladimir Putin and Maria Alekseyevna Lvova-Belova, the Russian commissioner for children’s rights. 

The pressure on those three brave judges came exclusively from those countries that claim to be fighting for a rules-based world order. 

Read more: ICC arrest warrants: The US must distance itself from an increasingly toxic Israel