War against Gaza: Netanyahu considers stopover in Europe for fear of arrest warrant

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is considering a stopover in Europe during his trip to Washington later this month, despite concerns about an arrest warrant request from the International Criminal Court (ICC), according to local media.

Kan News reported on Wednesday that the prime minister’s plane, named “Wing of Zion,” may not be able to fly directly to the United States due to a lack of preparation.

Netanyahu’s office is currently examining the feasibility of such a stopover in Europe as the ICC seeks arrest warrants against Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant.

Gallant and Netanyahu are accused of war crimes and crimes against humanity, including starving the civilian population in the Gaza Strip as a method of war, intentionally causing great suffering, intentional killing, targeting the civilian population and extermination.

No arrest warrants have been issued yet. The ICC Prosecutor has submitted a request which is currently being examined by the ICC judges in the Pre-Trial Chamber.

The prosecutor also calls for the arrest of Hamas’s leader in the Gaza Strip, Yahya Sinwar, the commander of its military wing, Mohammed Diab Ibrahim al-Masri, better known as Mohammed Deif, and its political leader, Ismail Haniyeh.

The ICC has jurisdiction over nationals of its 124 member states and over crimes committed on their territory. It also has jurisdiction over cases referred to in a UN Security Council resolution.

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Israel is not a member of the ICC. However, the State of Palestine became a member in 2015. The Court can therefore investigate Israeli individuals for crimes committed in occupied Palestine, including Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

Although the United States is not a member of the court, Britain, France and several of Israel’s Western allies are members of the ICC.

If the Pre-Trial Chamber approves the arrest warrant, the ICC member states, as signatories to the Rome Statute, would be obliged to arrest the accused.

“Member states have a legal obligation to fully cooperate with the court, including arresting those against whom there is an arrest warrant,” Eitan Diamond of the Diakonia International Humanitarian Law Centre in Jerusalem told MEE in May.

“Israel and relevant Israeli officials would not want to take the risk that states would fail to meet their obligations.”

Since the arrest warrant has not yet been approved, the legality of Netanyahu’s travel to and from member states remains unclear.

In the past, ICC pre-trial judges have granted prosecutors’ requests in almost all previous arrest warrant cases.

Travel restrictions have been a reality facing Russian President Vladimir Putin since he and another senior official were indicted by the International Criminal Court in March last year for their role in Moscow’s war against Ukraine.

In December, Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva suggested that Putin could face arrest if he attended the G20 summit in Rio later this year.

In the past, some Member States have disregarded this obligation: South Africa and Jordan, for example, failed to arrest the accused former Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir during visits to their respective countries, earning them criticism from human rights groups and the ICC itself.

As the Guardian reported on Monday, the new Labour government is expected to abandon Britain’s attempt to delay the International Criminal Court’s decision on the arrest warrant against Netanyahu.