The American newspaper “Wall Street Journal” quoted current and former officials in the International Criminal Court as saying that Karim Khan, the court’s prosecutor “was preparing before his annual vacation to request the issuance of orders to arrest the two Israeli ministers in Salail Smotrich and Etamar bin Ghafir on charges of expanding Jewish settlements in the West Bank.”
The newspaper also stated that legal officials and experts “questioned the courtfitted of these efforts without the presence of the main public prosecutor.”
Those experts warned – according to the newspaper – of the United States resorting to “paralyzing the work of the International Criminal Court by actually isolating it from the American financial system, which may expose it to an existential threat.”
The “Wall Street Journal” also quoted officials close to the International Criminal Court as saying that the courts of the court “were completely secreted when any new requests were deposited to issue orders to arrest Israeli or Hamas officials.”
Two weeks ago, the US administration imposed sanctions on Karim Khan, the prosecutor, a week after President Donald Trump signed a presidential decree in this regard.
The US Treasury then said that it “imposed sanctions on Khan in accordance with the provisions of the executive order issued by Trump on February 6, which requires the international criminal to issue an arrest warrant against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former defense minister Yov Gallant for war crimes in the Gaza Strip.”
Khan, a British nationality, had begun the measures that prompted the International Criminal Court to issue arrest warrants against both Netanyahu and Galant at the end of 2024.
The International Criminal Court judges found that there are “reasonable reasons” on suspicion of war crimes and crimes against humanity in the war launched by Israel on the Gaza Strip on October 7, 2023.
She explained that the war crimes attributed to Netanyahu and Galant include the use of starvation as a weapon for war, as well as crimes against humanity represented in killing, persecution and other inhumane acts.
