A group of relatives of Hamas hostages go to The Hague this Wednesday in an attempt to urge the International Criminal Court (ICC) to issue arrest warrants of leaders of the Islamist group while the Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, insists on maintaining military pressure on Gaza as a way to free the kidnapped people.
Almost a hundred freed hostages and relatives of others still in the hands of Hamas are scheduled to present to the ICC documents that can support charges such as “hostage-taking, forced disappearance, crimes of sexual violence, torture and other serious accusations” of alleged crimes committed on October 7 by Hamas, in an attack that caused 1,200 deaths in Israel.
“This step is crucial to the judicial process and underlines the seriousness of the charges against Hamas leaders. The short-term objectives of this presentation include the issuance of arrest warrants for the implicated Hamas leaders,” explains the Hostages and Families of Missing Persons Forum, formed after the attack. They will be accompanied by Israeli and international lawyers.
Relatives of three Hamas victims were already received by ICC prosecutor Karim Khan in November, “In an important meeting in which the prosecutor gave a lot of attention to the victims' narrative, and showed a lot of seriousness, humanity and dignity,” said French lawyer François Zimeray, representative of eleven affected Israeli families.
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Victims, witnesses and other bodies can submit “communications” to the ICC prosecutor to support their investigations, But these are not defined as “complaints”, as in national justice, but rather as a transmission of information.
Since 2021, the prosecutor has opened an investigation into alleged crimes committed since 2014 in the occupied Palestinian territories, from Gaza to the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, which also affects the Hamas attack on October 7, but also the current Israeli war in Gaza, which has already claimed the lives of more than 28,000 civilians.
Therefore, the hostage taking is already the subject of that investigation and any evidence can also be sent electronically to the prosecutor's office under the “State of Palestine” section.
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The Palestinian Government acceded to the Rome Statute, the founding treaty of the ICC, in 2015.
However, although Hamas victims seek legal protection from the ICC, Israel has not ratified the Statute, and does not recognize the Court's jurisdiction. The investigation focuses on war crimes committed in occupied Palestinian territories and affects all active actors in the conflict: Hamas, other pro-Palestinian militias, and the Israeli Army.
More than 50,000 people, including several Spanish ministers, signed a letter sent in November to the ICC asking it to also investigate Israel for “genocide” and issue an arrest warrant against Netanyahu.
Those who break the law will be held accountable
Karim Khan reiterated this Monday his request for “the immediate release of all hostages” and assured that this “represents an important focus” of the investigation.
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Besides, He stressed his “concern” about the bombings and the possible ground incursion of Israeli forces in Rafah, in southern Gaza, and warned that “those who break the law will be held accountable” and assured that The investigation is “being carried out with the utmost urgency with a view to bringing those responsible to justice.”
Despite the Netanyahu government's lack of cooperation, the prosecutor visited Israel in November, at the request of hostages' relatives. “Since then, I have not seen any perceptible change in Israel's behavior,” Khan lamented.
This Monday, Israel rescued two hostages alive in Rafah, amid intense bombardments that killed dozens of Gazans, while the international community and actors such as The UN, the US and Egypt are pressing so that there is no land attack on Rafah.
(Keep reading: This was the military operation in which Israel freed two hostages in the Gaza Strip)
Netanyahu defended his strategy of maintaining military pressure on Gaza as a way to free hostages, Meanwhile, Hamas denounced the “deepening of the genocide” in Rafah, given the “tragic conditions” in which 1.4 million Gazans live there.
In January, the International Court of Justice (ICJ), a UN court located in The Hague, asked Israel to take “immediate and effective” steps to prevent a genocide against the Palestinian population of Gaza.
EFE
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