Paris:

Provisions for immunity from prosecution at the International Criminal Court apply to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the French foreign ministry said on Wednesday.

It said the Israeli leader was covered by immunity rules that apply to states which are not a party to the ICC. Israel is not an ICC member.

“A state cannot be held to act in a way that is incompatible with its obligations in terms of international law with regards to immunities granted to states which are not party to the ICC,” the French statement said.

“Such immunities apply to Prime Minister Netanyahu and other ministers in question, and must be taken into consideration should the ICC ask us to arrest them and hand them over,” it said.

Earlier Wednesday, Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot had already said that France considered that some leaders could enjoy immunity from ICC prosecution.

Asked if France would arrest Netanyahu if he stepped on French territory, Jean-Noel Barrot did not give a specific answer in an interview with Franceinfo radio.

He said France “is very committed to international justice and will apply international law based on its obligations to cooperate with the ICC.”

But he added that the court’s statute “deals with questions of immunity for certain leaders”.

“It is ultimately up to the judicial authorities to decide,” he added.

The ICC this month issued warrants for Netanyahu, former Israeli defence minister Yoav Gallant and Hamas military chief Mohammed Deif. Netanyahu has slammed the move.

The EU’s foreign policy chief Josep Borrell has said the arrest warrants are “binding” and should be implemented.

However unlike some European states, France has so far taken a more cautious stance on the warrants.

Barrot’s comments marked the first time a top French official has evoked a possible immunity.

– ‘Deeply problematic’ –
Unconfirmed media reports have said that Netanyahu angrily raised the issue in telephone talks with President Emmanuel Macron and urged Paris not to enforce the decision.

France has been instrumental in efforts to end fighting in the Middle East and, with the United States, helped broker a ceasefire between Israel and Lebanon that came into force Wednesday.

Article 27 of the Rome Statute — the foundation of the ICC — states that immunity “shall not bar the Court from exercising its jurisdiction over such a person.”

But article 98 says a state cannot “act inconsistently with its obligations under international law with respect to the… diplomatic immunity of a person.”

France’s stance on potential immunity for Netanyahu prompted some strong reactions Wednesday, both at home and abroad.

Amnesty International called the French stance “deeply problematic”, saying it ran counter to the government’s obligations as an ICC member.

“Rather than inferring that ICC indictees may enjoy immunity, France should expressly confirm its acceptance of the unequivocal legal duty under the Rome Statute to carry out arrest warrants,” said Anne Savinel Barras, president of Amnesty International France.

French Green party boss Marine Tondelier, calling the government’s stance “shameful”, said it was probably the result of an agreement between the French and Israeli leaders.

“Surely that was the deal, that France would get a mention in the official statement announcing the ceasefire in Lebanon that was published by France and the United States yesterday,” she said on X.

“Again, France is bending over backwards to meet Benjamin Netanyahu’s demand to pick him over international justice,” she said.

Barrot meanwhile hailed the ceasefire as a major success for France and expressed hope it would result in the “reform” of Lebanon after years of crisis.

The ceasefire provides “that the Israeli army withdraws from southern Lebanon… and that it is replaced by a massive deployment of the Lebanese armed forces”.

“In this context, France will play its full part,” Barrot said.
 

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

New Delhi:

Denouncing the International Criminal Court (ICC), Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu likened the court’s arrest warrant against him to the infamous Dreyfus trial of 1894.  The Dreyfus trial, which began in 1894, involved a Jewish French army officer falsely accused of treason based on fabricated evidence. 

The ICC’s move accuses Netanyahu and former Israeli defence minister Yoav Gallant of war crimes in the ongoing Gaza conflict, a decision Netanyahu lambasted as “anti-Semitic” and reflective of a “modern-day Dreyfus trial.”

“The anti-Semitic decision of the International Criminal Court is comparable to a modern-day Dreyfus trial – and it will end in the same way,” Netanyahu declared, referring to the wrongful conviction of Alfred Dreyfus, a Jewish French army officer, in a landmark case that exposed deep anti-Semitism in late 19th-century France.

The Dreyfus Affair was one of the most controversial legal scandals of 19th-century France, marked by anti-Semitism and judicial corruption. Alfred Dreyfus, a French Jewish army captain, was wrongfully convicted of treason in 1894 based on fabricated evidence. Stripped of his rank in a humiliating public ceremony and exiled to Devil’s Island, a former penal colony in french Guayana, Dreyfus’s plight became a symbol of systemic injustice and anti-Semitism.

French authorities accused Dreyfus of leaking military secrets based on a scrap of handwriting vaguely resembling his own. The trial, fueled by rampant anti-Semitism, resulted in a conviction despite evidence pointing to another officer, Ferdinand Esterhazy, as the true culprit. The case divided France, with prominent intellectuals like Émile Zola denouncing the injustice in his famous open letter, J’accuse…!

The ICC has issued warrants for Netanyahu and Gallant over alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza following Hamas’s brutal October 7 attacks on Israel. These attacks, which left over 1,400 Israelis dead and led to the kidnapping of hundreds, triggered a massive Israeli military response, resulting in immense loss of life and devastation in Gaza. The warrants mark the first time an Israeli head of state has been targeted by the court.

Netanyahu rejected the ICC’s actions as “absurd and false,” accusing Chief Prosecutor Karim Khan of corruption and alleging the decision was an attempt to distract from accusations of sexual harassment against Khan – charges Khan has denied. Israeli President Isaac Herzog described the ICC’s move as a “dark day for justice,” while Foreign Minister Gideon Saar said the court had “lost all legitimacy.”

Human rights group B’Tselem, however, welcomed the ICC’s actions, urging international enforcement of the warrants. The group called the warrants “a critical step toward accountability for leaders responsible for crimes committed in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.”
 

An arrest warrant has been issued against Netanyahu and his Defence Minister Yoav Gallant

The prosecutor for the International Criminal Court on Monday applied for arrest warrants against three top leaders of the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas whose bloody October 7 attack triggered the ongoing war.

Karim Khan also said he was applying for arrest warrants against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defence Minister Yoav Gallant.

Here is what we know about the three Palestinians that ICC prosecutor Karim Khan wants arrested.

Ismail Haniyeh, the politician:

Ismail Haniyeh, 60, was elected head of the Hamas political bureau in 2017 to succeed Khaled Meshaal, but was already a well-known figure having become Palestinian prime minister in 2006 following an upset victory by Hamas in that year’s parliamentary election.

But the fragile power-sharing arrangement with the Fatah movement of Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas soon ruptured and Hamas took full control of the Gaza Strip in 2007 after violently ousting the president’s loyalists.

Considered a pragmatist, Haniyeh lives in exile and splits his time between Turkey and Qatar.

He has travelled on diplomatic missions to Iran and Turkey during the war, meeting both the Turkish and Iranian presidents.

Haniyeh is said to maintain good relations with the heads of the various Palestinian factions, including rivals to Hamas.

In his youth, the Hamas leader, who is known for having a calm demeanour, was a member of the student branch of the Muslim Brotherhood at the Islamic University of Gaza.

He joined Hamas in 1987 when the group was founded amid the outbreak of the first Palestinian intifada, or uprising, against Israeli occupation, which lasted until 1993.

During that time Haniyeh was imprisoned by Israel several times and then expelled to south Lebanon for six months.

In footage broadcast by Hamas-linked media after the October 7 attack, Haniyeh was seen watching images on television of the unfolding attack on Israel, before joining other Hamas leaders in a prayer to “thank Allah for this victory”.

While more than seven months of war have left swathes of Gaza in rubble, Haniyeh repeatedly insisted that the group would hand over hostages only if there was a permanent end to the fighting.

Mohammed Deif, the ‘chief of staff’

The elusive Mohammed Deif heads Hamas’s armed wing, the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades.

He is Israel’s public enemy number one and a man they have tried to assassinate at least six times.

Deif, whose real name is Mohammed Diab al-Masri, was born in 1965 in Gaza’s Khan Yunis refugee camp.

He has also been on the US list of “international terrorists” since 2015.

Considered by Hamas to be the group’s “chief of staff”, Deif announced the start of the Hamas attack on Israel dubbed “Al-Aqsa Flood” in an audio message on October 7.

In the recording, Deif is heard saying that “the positions and fortifications of the enemy have been targeted by 5,000 rockets and shells during the first 20 minutes” of the attack.

Only a few, poor-quality photographs of Deif are known to exist, the most recent taken some 20 years ago.

His hiding place is unknown and he is reported to be a master of disguise adept at blending into the Palestinian population.

He has been involved with Hamas since the 1980s and is said to have taken part in many of its operations, including the abduction of soldiers and suicide bombings.

He was appointed head of Hamas’s military wing in 2002 after the death of his predecessor, Salah Shehade, in an Israeli air raid.

Two years earlier, at the start of the second intifada, Deif escaped or was freed from a prison run by Yasser Arafat’s Palestinian Authority.

Shortly after he was named Hamas’s military head, Israel launched its fifth bid to assassinate him in Gaza, in an attack that left him severely wounded, with unconfirmed reports suggesting he had been left paraplegic.

In 2014, Israel launched an air strike on Gaza, killing Deif’s wife and one of the couple’s children.

His enemies have dubbed him the “cat with nine lives” while many Palestinians consider him a living legend.

Yahya Sinwar, the ‘strongman’ of Gaza

A former commander of the Hamas military wing, Yahya Sinwar, 61, was elected in 2017 as head of the Hamas group in Gaza.

Now, Israeli officials say he is a “dead man walking”.

Sinwar stands accused of masterminding the group’s October 7 attack on southern Israeli communities.

He rose through the ranks of Hamas as a fierce advocate of armed struggle against Israel and is considered the group’s “defence minister”.

Sinwar, who knows Israel well and speaks Hebrew, spent 23 years in Israeli jails before his release in 2011 in a prisoner exchange involving French-Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit.

Like Deif, he also is on the US list of wanted “international terrorists”.

Israeli officials have said that the ongoing offensive on Gaza is in pursuit of senior Hamas leaders including Sinwar.

Known for his secrecy, Sinwar is a security operator “par excellence”, according to Abu Abdallah, a Hamas member who spent years alongside him in Israeli jails.

Like Deif, he was born in the Khan Yunis refugee camp, and it was Sinwar who set up the group’s internal security apparatus.

Since the war broke out Sinwar’s whereabouts have been unknown, but the Israeli army released a video in February it said showed the him being led through a tunnel together with a woman and three children.

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

The Hague:

The prosecutor of the International Criminal Court on Monday applied for arrest warrants against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and top Hamas leaders on suspicion of war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Karim Khan said he was seeking warrants against Netanyahu and Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant for crimes including “starvation”, “wilful killing”, and “extermination and/or murder”.

“We submit that the crimes against humanity charged were committed as part of a widespread and systematic attack against the Palestinian civilian population pursuant to State policy. These crimes, in our assessment, continue to this day,” said Khan in reference to Netanyahu and Gallant.

The charges laid against the Hamas leaders including Yahya Sinwar, the head of the movement, include “extermination”, “rape and other acts of sexual violence”, and “taking hostages as a war crime”.

“We submit that the crimes against humanity charged were part of a widespread and systematic attack against the civilian population of Israel by Hamas and other armed groups pursuant to organisational policies,” said the statement.

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