WEST BANK KILLINGS AND THE NEXT ATTEMPT AT HOLDING ISRAELI LEADERS ACCOUNTABLE

By Jake and Zach

2 May 2024

The International Criminal Court has tried warlords and presidents, but is less effective in the current international order. (Credit to Anadolu through Getty Images)

Months after South Africa’s genocide case against Israel before the International Criminal Court resulted in a lukewarm statement sanctioning Israeli self-defense but recommending care from civilians, a new, opposite approach may bear actual consequences for Netanyahu and his cabinet. A new case by BBC Investigations focuses not on overall ethnic cleansing allegations in Gaza but the killing of two Palestinian boys in the West Bank on November 29, 2023.

Reporters used phone data, CCTV footage, IDF structure and military movement, witness testimony, and scene analysis to allege war crimes violating international treaties to which Israel is a party. Ben Saul, UN special rapporteur on human rights and counter-terrorism, stated killings appeared to be a "war crime". The separation from Gaza makes the fog of war and actions against Hamas militants impact the investigation less.

Israeli officials are scrambling. There is increasing concern that the International Criminal Court is planning to issue the arrest of top Israeli officials - including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. In the past, the ICC has issued arrest warrants for the leaders of other countries, like Russia’s Putin, yet Benjamin Netanyahu said that such an action would be "an outrage of historic proportions".

It is unlikely, with American backing, that actual arrests of their top political and military officials would occur. The United Nations are purposely toothless, a forum where all nations can converse without the threat of force, but that lack of enforcement power often reduces UN actions to official denunciations and nothing else. Perhaps Israeli leaders being charged with war crimes will impact their ability to travel or obtain support from other countries. Sadly, the ICC and the conventions of fighting war in which innocents are spared and prisoners of war are treated well seems more distant now than in 1949 when the Geneva Conventions were first drafted.

American senators and Biden’s administration will undoubtedly continue their support for Israel, preferring to keep criticism behind the scenes rather than in a criminal courtroom. There are even Israeli threats against the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank expressed through American politicians - showing just how confident Netanyahu’s wartime government is in its sponsors. If the ICC issues the warrants but are blocked by the US, it is international law and its importance that suffers. The diplomatic victories of the 1990s that got Eastern European and Rwandan leaders in front of the ICC have not only been forgotten, but the ability to repeat those successes is far less likely.

The ICC is also investigating Hamas’ leaders. Back in December, the ICC’s chief prosecutor Karim Khan KC visited Israel to investigate both Gaza and the site of Hamas’s attacks on October 7th. Khan stated that Hamas’s actions represent serious international crimes. The ICC is hoping that the Hamas fighters and leaders are captured so they can be made available for trial. In their world, Netanyahu and Sinwar would be sharing a jail cell - in our reality, the ideals set by the generations scarred by World War Two will be severely tested.

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