ICC turns down Israel’s bid to drop Netanyahu’s arrest warrant

Judges at the International Criminal Court (ICC) have turned down Israel’s attempt to overturn arrest warrants for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and ex-Defence Minister Yoav Gallant, as reported by Middle East Eye via Reuters on July 16th.

Israel sought to have the warrants withdrawn as the ICC considers its broader challenge to the court’s jurisdiction over the war on Gaza. The judges also refused a separate Israeli request to suspend the ICC’s ongoing investigation into alleged crimes in the occupied Palestinian territories.

Israel’s legal team argued the arrest warrants should no longer stand, pointing to a decision in April by ICC appeals judges, which instructed a lower panel to re-examine Israel’s jurisdictional objections concerning Gaza.

However, the judges dismissed this claim, ruling that the jurisdictional challenge remains unresolved and that the arrest warrants will stay in force until the court issues a specific decision on the matter.

The ICC continues to face mounting political pressure to abandon its war crimes probe. Earlier this month, a senior legal adviser to the US State Department issued a stark warning to the court’s oversight body, declaring that “all options are on the table.” Reed Rubinstein, the US representative, vowed Washington would use every available diplomatic, political and legal tool to “block ICC overreach.”

Recently, the Trump administration announced sanctions on Francesca Albanese, the UN’s special rapporteur for Palestine, following her report which accused over 60 companies, including US tech giants Google, Amazon and Microsoft, of contributing to what she described as “Israel’s economy of genocide.”

Israel’s efforts to halt the ICC process have so far failed. Middle East Eye also reported that a British-Israeli defence lawyer threatened in May to “destroy” ICC chief prosecutor Karim Khan unless he withdrew the warrants.

Middle East Eye via Reuters, Maghrebi.org