Washington:

US President Joe Biden denied Monday that Israel’s war in Gaza was genocide, as he slammed an “outrageous” request by the International Criminal Court’s prosecutor for an arrest warrant for Israeli leaders.

“What’s happening is not genocide,” Biden told a Jewish American Heritage Month event at the White House as he discussed the conflict sparked by Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel.

His remarks referred specifically to a case at a different tribunal, the UN International Court of Justice (ICJ), which is dealing with allegations by South Africa that Israel’s war in Gaza is genocidal.

But he also amped up his criticism of the ICC, a separate war crimes court, saying that “we reject” ICC Prosecutor Karim Khan’s bid to arrest Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and its defense minister.

Khan also sought the arrest of top Hamas figures including the Palestinian operative group’s leader in Gaza, Yahya Sinwar, and political chief Ismail Haniyeh.

“Whatever these warrants may imply, there is no equivalence between Israel and Hamas,” Biden told the audience in the Rose Garden of the White House.

Biden pledged “ironclad” support for Israel, adding that “we stand with Israel to take out Sinwar and the rest of the butchers of Hamas.”

The US president further vowed to free hostages taken by Hamas during the October 7 attack “come hell or high water.”

Hours earlier, he had issued a written statement saying that the ICC warrants were “outrageous.”

– ‘Shameful’ –

Biden’s expression of support comes despite recent tensions over Israel’s war in Gaza. Washington recently withheld a shipment of bombs to Israel in a bid to warn it off an offensive in the southern city of Rafah.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken warned separately that the ICC prosecutor’s move “could jeopardize” ceasefire talks to end the Gaza conflict.

“We reject the prosecutor’s equivalence of Israel with Hamas. It is shameful,” Blinken said in a statement.

US lawmakers were reportedly considering a legislative response punishing the ICC amid bipartisan fury among Republicans and Democrats.

Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson slammed the court’s “baseless and illegitimate” decision.

He accused Biden of a “pressure campaign” against Israel, saying the country was “fighting a just war for survival.”

Biden faces political pressure on both sides ahead of a November election clash with Donald Trump, with pro-Gaza student protests roiling US campuses while Republicans accuse him of failing to fully back Israel.

The White House refused to comment on whether the United States could take retaliatory action, including sanctions, against the ICC if it targeted Israel.

In 2020, the administration of then-president Donald Trump targeted the ICC with sanctions over its investigation in Afghanistan, but the Biden administration later lifted them.

However Washington’s ambiguous position over the court is reflected in the fact that it has backed the ICC’s attempt to prosecute Russian President Vladimir Putin over the invasion of Ukraine.

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said Monday that the United States “will continue” to assist the ICC in its investigation into alleged war crimes in Ukraine, despite denouncing the Israel move.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Washington:

The United States does not believe that genocide is occurring in Gaza but Israel must do more to protect Palestinian civilians, President Joe Biden’s top national security official said Monday.

As ceasefire talks stall and Israel continued striking the southern city of Rafah, White House National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan insisted that the responsibility for peace lay with operative group Hamas.

“We believe Israel can and must do more to ensure the protection and wellbeing of innocent civilians. We do not believe what is happening in Gaza is a genocide,” Sullivan told a briefing.

The US was “using the internationally accepted term for genocide, which includes a focus on intent” to reach this assessment, Sullivan added.

Biden wanted to see Hamas defeated but realized that Palestinian civilians were in “hell”, Sullivan said.

Sullivan said he was coming to the White House podium to “take a step back” and set out the Biden administration’s position on the conflict, amid criticism from both ends of the US political spectrum.

Biden has come under fire from Republicans for halting some weapons shipments to press his demands that Israel hold off a Rafah offensive, while there have been protests at US universities against his support for Israel.

The US president believed any Rafah operation “has got to be connected to a strategic endgame that also answered the question, ‘what comes next?'” Sullivan added.

This would avoid Israel “getting mired in a counterinsurgency campaign that never ends, and ultimately saps Israel’s strength and vitality.”

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

View of the Peace Palace which houses World Court where Ukraine’s legal battle against Russia over allegations of genocide used by Moscow to justify its 2022 invasion, resumed in The Hague, Netherlands, on September 18, 2023.
| Photo Credit: AP

Ukraine’s legal battle against Russia over allegations of genocide used by Moscow to justify its 2022 invasion resumes on September 18 at the United Nations’ highest court, as Russia seeks to have the case tossed out.

Hearings at the International Court of Justice, also known as the World Court, will see Ukraine supported by a record 32 other nations in a major show of support.

Kyiv launched the case shortly after Russia invaded Ukraine, arguing that the attack was based on false claims of acts of genocide in the Luhansk and Donetsk regions of eastern Ukraine and alleging that Moscow was planning genocidal acts in Ukraine. It wants the court to order Russia to halt its invasion and pay reparations.

Filing its case last year, Ukraine said that “Russia has turned the Genocide Convention on its head — making a false claim of genocide as a basis for actions on its part that constitute grave violations of the human rights of millions of people across Ukraine.”

Ukraine brought the case to the Hague-based court based on the 1948 Genocide Convention, which both Moscow and Kyiv have ratified. In an interim ruling in March 2022, the court ordered Russia to halt hostilities in Ukraine, a binding legal ruling that Moscow has flouted as it presses ahead with its devastating attacks on Ukrainian towns and cities.

Hearings this week are expected to see lawyers for Russia argue that the court does not have jurisdiction to hear the case, while Ukraine will call on judges to press ahead to hearings on the substance of its claims.

In an unprecedented show of international support for Kyiv, 32 of Ukraine’s allies including Canada, Australia and every European Union member nation except Hungary will also make statements in support of Kyiv’s legal arguments. The United States asked to participate on Ukraine’s side, but the U.N. court’s judges rejected the U.S. request on a technicality.

The court’s panel of international judges will likely take weeks or months to reach a decision on whether or not the case can proceed. If it does, a final ruling is likely years away.

The International Court of Justice hears disputes between nations over matters of law, unlike the International Criminal Court, also based in The Hague, that holds individuals criminally responsible for offenses including war crimes and crimes against humanity.

The ICC has issued a war crimes arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin, accusing him of responsibility for the abduction of Ukrainian children.