ShareGAZA: Dozens were killed or unaccounted for in Gaza on Thursday after Zionist strikes, on the day the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over the war. With warrants also issued for Netanyahu’s former defense minister Yoav Gallant and Hamas’ military chief, all three men face accusations of crimes against humanity and war crimes in the conflict sparked by the Oct 7 attack.
Palestinian health authorities said 112 Palestinians were killed and scores injured in several Zionist massacres. One strike near the Kamal Adwan hospital in the north of the territory left “dozens of people” dead or missing, the facility’s director Hossam Abu Safiya told AFP. Another strike was reported in a neighborhood of Gaza City, with civil defense spokesman Mahmud Bassal saying 22 were dead. “There is a headless body. We don’t yet know who this is,” said Moataz Al-Arouqi, who lives in the area.
The health ministry in Gaza said the death toll from the Zionist offensive has reached 44,056 people, the majority civilians. The Zionist entity has faced growing international criticism over its conduct of the Gaza war, including from its allies. The ICC’s move now theoretically limits the movement of Netanyahu as any of the court’s 124 national members would be obliged to arrest him on their territory. An arrest warrant has also been issued for Gallant, whom Netanyahu sacked as defense minister on Nov 5, and Hamas military chief Ibrahim Al-Masri, known as Mohammed Deif.
In August, the Zionist entity said it had killed Deif in Gaza the previous month. Hamas has not confirmed his death. The arrest warrants prompted swift and strong condemnation from the Zionist entity, with Netanyahu branding the decision “anti-Semitic” and comparing it to a “modern-day Dreyfus trial”. Hamas on the other hand hailed the arrest warrants for Netanyahu and Gallant, calling the decision an “important step towards justice”. It did not mention the warrant for Deif.
“The Chamber issued warrants of arrest for two individuals, Mr Benjamin Netanyahu and Mr Yoav Gallant, for crimes against humanity and war crimes committed from at least 8 October 2023 until at least 20 May 2024, the day the Prosecution filed the applications for warrants of arrest,” the ICC said in a statement. A warrant had also been issued for Deif, it added. The court said it had pressed on with issuing the arrest warrant as the prosecutor had not been able to determine whether Deif was dead.
The court said it had found “reasonable grounds” to believe Netanyahu and Gallant bore “criminal responsibility” for the war crime of starvation as a method of warfare, as well as the crimes against humanity of murder, persecution, and other inhumane acts. The ICC said the pair also “bear criminal responsibility as civilian superiors for the war crime of intentionally directing an attack against the civilian population”.
The court alleged both men “intentionally and knowingly deprived the civilian population in Gaza of objects indispensable to their survival”, including food, water, medicine, fuel, and electricity. Regarding the war crime of starvation, the court said the “lack of food, water, electricity and fuel, and specific medical supplies, created conditions of life calculated to bring about the destruction of part of the civilian population in Gaza”.
This resulted in civilian deaths including of children, due to malnutrition and dehydration, the court charged. “On the basis of material presented by the Prosecution covering the period until 20 May 2024, the Chamber could not determine that all elements of the crime against humanity of extermination were met,” the court said. However, judges did say there were reasonable grounds to believe that the crime against humanity of murder had been committed in relation to these victims.
The Zionist entity is also fighting Hamas ally Hezbollah in Lebanon. On Thursday, US envoy Amos Hochstein was due to meet Netanyahu to seek a truce in the war in Lebanon. Hochstein’s meetings in Lebanon this week appeared to indicate some progress in efforts to end that war. More than 3,558 people in Lebanon have been killed since the clashes began, Lebanese authorities have said, most since late September. Among them were more than 200 children, according to the United Nations.
The Zionist entity has also intensified strikes on neighboring Syria. In the latest attack, a Syria war monitor said 79 were killed in strikes on Palmyra in the east of the country. Those killed in Wednesday’s strikes included 53 fighters from Syrian groups and 26 foreign fighters, mostly from Iraq as well as four from Lebanon’s Hezbollah, the monitor said.
On Thursday, successive rounds of strikes hit the southern suburbs of Beirut, Hezbollah’s main bastion. Strikes also hit south Lebanon, including the border town of Khiam where Zionist troops are pushing to advance, according to Lebanon’s official National News Agency. Hezbollah claimed a series of attacks on Thursday, including one on a base near Ashdod, its deepest so far. On Thursday, rocket fire from Lebanon hit the Zionist entity’s north, killing one man, Zionist first responders said. – Agencies
