The International Criminal Court has issued an arrest warrant for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant as well as for Hamas leader Mohammed Diab Ibrahim Al-Masri.
Two other Hamas leaders also had warrants but they have since been killed so the court withdrew the warrants. Mohammed Diab Ibrahim Al-Masri is also reportedly dead but the court says that they are “not in a position to determine whether Mr Deif has been killed or remains alive. Therefore, the Chamber issues the present warrant of arrest. The Prosecution also noted that it continues to investigate the crimes in the ongoing conflict and envisions that further applications for warrants of arrest will be submitted.”
Israel had rejected the initial warrants, arguing that the court had no authority but the court rejected their rejection. The arrest warrants for the Israeli officials are for crimes against the Palestinians in Gaza. The court insists that it has jurisdiction over Gaza and the West Bank.
Respected journalist Seymour Hersh reported on Wednesday that his sources on the ground in Gaza call what is happening “holocaust conditions.”
“We don’t use the word because it has a special place in the Western imagination and heart, but this is a holocaust in terms of collective punishment and dehumanization and the technical tools. But is it a holocaust eighty years later being done remotely and on people’s bodies. . . . A missile i dropped in a densely populated civilian area, tents mostly, and then you have drones coming in afterward to pick off people one by one. We didn’t have drones during World War II, but we do now, and the logic is pretty much the same.”
Hersh reports that Israel will have full control of the West Bank within two weeks.
