ICC Chief: Israel Shows ‘No Real Effort’ to Probe Gaza War Crimes Accusations

The Hague (Quds News Network)- International Criminal Court (ICC) Prosecutor Karim Khan said Israel had made “no real effort” to investigate war crimes accusations brought against it during the war in Gaza.
In an interview with Reuters, he stood by his decision over the arrest warrants issued in November for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Israeli defence chief Yoav Gallant after finding reasonable grounds for charging them with the war crime of starvation as a method of warfare along with the crimes against humanity of murder and persecution.
“We’re here as a court of last resort and …as we speak right now, we haven’t seen any real effort by the State of Israel to take action that would meet the established jurisprudence, which is investigations regarding the same suspects for the same conduct,” Khan told Reuters.
“That can change and I hope it does,” he said in Thursday’s interview, a day after Israel and Hamas reached a deal for a ceasefire in Gaza.
An Israeli investigation could have led to the case being handed back to Israeli courts under so-called complementary principles. Israel can still demonstrate its willingness to investigate, even after warrants were issued, he said.
The ICC, with 125 member states, is the world’s permanent court to prosecute individuals for alleged war crimes, crimes against humanity, genocide and aggression.
He said “the question is have those judges, have those prosecutors, have those legal instruments been used to properly scrutinise the allegations that we’ve seen in the occupied Palestinian territories, in the State of Palestine? And I think the answer to that was ‘no’.”
The US House of Representatives last week passed its first major foreign policy bill of the 119th Congressional session to sanction officials at the ICC for issuing the arrest warrants.
In response, Khan said, “It is of course unwanted and unwelcome that an institution that is a child of Nuremberg …is threatened with sanctions. It should make people take note because this court is not owned by the prosecutor or by judges. We have 125 states.”
It “is a matter that should make all people of conscience be concerned,” he said, declining to discuss further what sanctions could mean for the court.