Published in the Jerusalem Post, 19 August 2024
.jpg)
It was on May 20, 2024
that Karim Khan KC, a British jurist and chief prosecutor of the International
Criminal Court (ICC), applied to the court to issue international arrest
warrants against three Hamas leaders and also against Israel’s prime minister
Benjamin Netanyahu and defense minister Yoav Gallant. His request in respect of the Israeli leaders
was backed by a catalogue of alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity that he
accused them of committing.
The High Level Military
Group (HLMG) is an association of military leaders and officials from NATO and
other democratic countries. Between them
they have a wealth of experience at the very highest operational and policy
levels as regards the conduct of warfare and its attendant policies.
On August 17 a letter signed by 10 of their members was published in Britain’s Daily Telegraph. In it they state: “We believe that the International Criminal Court’s pursuit of arrest warrants for Israeli national leaders is unjustified.” They back their assertion with evidence gathered in direct investigations the group undertook in July within the IDF and inside Gaza.
They describe the IDF
military justice and accountability mechanisms as “consistent with the highest
standards of our own armed forces,” and that
Israel has both the ability and the will to implement them. They contend that issuing arrest warrants
would deny Israel the time and opportunity permitted to other countries to do
so.
Their conclusion: “These warrants should be dismissed.”
When Khan originally
applied to the ICC for these international arrest warrants, Britain’s then
Conservative government wanted to question the court’s power to do so. Since then, a general election has resulted
in a new Labour administration, and one of its earliest decisions was not to proceed
with Britain’s submission to the ICC.
Media comment had concentrated on possible submissions from other parties that questioned the court’s jurisdiction. None had anticipated a submission that attacked its chief prosecutor’s case for issuing arrest warrants against Israel’s leaders in the first place. But this is precisely what happened when, on August 5, Dr Rafael Bardaji presented an amicus curiae submission to the ICC on behalf of the HLMG. It tore Khan’s case to shreds.
In his application to the ICC, chief prosecutor Khan states as a fact that Israel indulged in “collective punishment of the civilian population”. He substantiates this by asserting that Israel “deliberately” starved the Gaza population, “wilfully” caused them great suffering, serious injury and death, and “intentionally” directed attacks against them, murdering and persecuting them. He makes these assertions without offering any proof that the actions he lists were deliberate, wilfull or intentional.
The HLMG did not indulge
in matching assertion with counter-assertion.
As it made clear in the first paragraph of its 28 paragraph submission:
“The HLMG conducted an in-country assessment of the Gaza conflict in July 2024,
visiting IDF military HQs from the top level; humanitarian aid installations
and operations; units down to battalion level of command; and a visit inside
Gaza.” In short, its observations are
based on solid, first-hand evidence.
It first tackles Khan’s allegations that Israel blocked food supplies from reaching the Gazan population, deliberately starving them. The HLMG describes visiting crossing points built by the IDF since the war began specifically to facilitate increased volumes of aid entering the Gaza Strip. The Erez Crossing was completely destroyed by Hamas on 7 October, “Since then two vehicle crossing points in Erez were established by the IDF. We observed roads inside the Gaza Strip that were built by the IDF specifically to enable delivery of aid laterally and south to north.”
The submission continues: “The IDF operates according to a clear
chain of command. The directives and commands we reviewed did not include any
order to starve civilians, or to use issues related to humanitarian assistance
as a method of warfare, and in fact, included clear statements regarding the
IDF’s legal obligations towards the civilian population.”
Its conclusion: “Our assessment shows that the IDF is
operationalizing the Israeli government’s stated policy to ‘flood Gaza with
aid’… we believe this is counter indicative of and inconsistent with any plan
or intent to employ starvation as a method of warfare at any stage in this
conflict.”
The submission then
turns to Khan’s assertion in his arrest warrant application that Israel imposed
“a total siege over Gaza”, demonstrating from known and provable facts that at
no stage was Gaza under siege.
The group’s paragraph
14 demonstrates that Khan’s assertions about the cutting of water and
electricity supplies into Gaza are riddled with factual inaccuracies. It deals
equally robustly with the other charges included by Khan in his application: “Based on our observations, we do not believe
the evidence of actual operational practice in any way corroborates the
accusation of policies [designed] to intentionally attack civilians. In our
view, the IDF has developed and implemented innovative procedures to mitigate
the risk to civilians arising from attacks on valid military objectives.”
Finally the submission
describes the IDF military justice and accountability mechanism which the HLMG
found “consistent with the highest standards of our own armed forces.” The group singled out for praise the IDF Fact
Finding and Assessment Mechanism (FFAM), which examines any incident that could
raise a charge of possible illegal conduct or military procedural misconduct. “There are currently approximately 300
incidents being actively investigated by the FFAM,” it says, “with many more
which they have received initial information about. To our knowledge no other
armed forces have established such a permanent system but would benefit from
doing so.”
The ICC describes its own remit in these terms. “The ICC intervenes only in situations where States themselves are either unwilling or unable to genuinely investigate and prosecute the perpetrators of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity.”
The HLMG submission states: “We do not believe there is a credible basis to conclude Israel lacks the ability or will to implement national investigatory and judicial processes that are comparable to other countries and their militaries.” No individual, it adds, including the prime minister and minster of defense, is immune from this process.
“The proposed ICC arrest
warrants,” it concludes, “ would deny investigatory leeway to the State of
Israel.”
In other words, reject
your prosecutor’s request.
https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-815233
No comments:
Post a Comment