JERUSALEM: Israel is voicing concern that the International Criminal Court could be preparing to issue arrest warrants for government officials on charges related to its war against Hamas.
The ICC — which can charge individuals with war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide — is investigating Hamas’ Oct. 7 cross-border attack and Israel’s devastating military assault on Hamas-ruled Gaza, now in its seventh month.
In response to Israeli media reports that the ICC might soon issue arrest warrants for senior Israeli government and military officials, Foreign Minister Israel Katz on Sunday warned Israeli embassies to bolster their security because of the risk of a “wave of severe antisemitism.”
“We expect the court (ICC) to refrain from issuing arrest warrants against senior Israeli political and security officials,” Katz said. “We will not bow our heads or be deterred and will continue to fight.”
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Friday that any ICC decisions would not affect Israel’s actions but would set a dangerous precedent.
Israeli officials are worried that the court could issue arrest warrants against Netanyahu and other top officials for alleged violations of international humanitarian law in Gaza, Israeli media have reported.
They said the ICC is also considering arrest warrants for leaders from Hamas.
The ICC, based in The Hague, and Hamas, Gaza’s ruling group, did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Israel is not a member of the court and does not recognize its jurisdiction, but the Palestinian territories were admitted with the status of a member state in 2015.
In October, ICC Chief Prosecutor Karim Khan said the court had jurisdiction over any potential war crimes committed by Hamas fighters in Israel and by Israeli forces in the Gaza Strip.
Khan has said his team is actively investigating any crimes allegedly committed in Gaza and that those who are in breach of the law will be held accountable.
On Oct. 7, Hamas led an attack on Israeli military bases and communities in which 1,200 people were killed, mostly civilians, and 253 were taken as hostages, according to Israeli tallies.
Israel has since launched a ground, air and sea offensive that has killed more than 34,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza authorities, and has laid much of the small, densely populated coastal territory to waste.
The Gaza Health Ministry does not distinguish between combatants and non-combatants in its casualty reports but most of the fatalities have been civilians, health officials say.
Israel says that it takes precautions to minimize civilian deaths and that at least a third of the Gaza fatalities are combatants, figures that Hamas has dismissed.
Israel’s military campaign has displaced most of the blockaded Palestinian enclave’s 2.3 million people and created a humanitarian crisis.
The case at the ICC is separate from a genocide case launched against Israel at the International Court of Justice, also based in The Hague.
The ICJ, also known as the World Court, is a United Nations court that deals with disputes between states, while the ICC is a treaty-based criminal court focusing on individual criminal responsibility for war crimes.

RIYADH: Nations must look for ways to unite on issues that “affect the planet” for the prosperity and stability of the global community, a senior UAE official told a World Economic Forum session here on Monday.

“We have to find a way that non-geostrategic issues should bring us together, rather than take us apart. I think technology, climate should bring us together because we have a vested interest,” said Anwar Gargash, diplomatic adviser to the UAE president, during a panel discussion titled “Rising Powers for a Multipolar World.”

“We might all argue about who pays what, how fast it should go … but ultimately we should recognize that these issues that affect the planet are issues that we will all suffer from,” he added.

Gargash said that “to some certain extent we have a knack for politicizing these issues rather than making these issues an adhesive that brings us together.”

Another panelist, Croatia’s Foreign Affairs Minister Gordan Grlic Radman emphasized the importance of multilateral relationships, “not replacing them … and not watering down rules-based order. Rules are there to respect them.”

Espen Barth Eide, Norway’s foreign affairs minister, added that the global community was experiencing a crisis of credibility. This has been exacerbated by the situation in Gaza and by “the inability of many Western countries who have hesitated to use the same type of language … they used against Russia.”

“When it comes to Gaza, we have not been able to see the same type of response … the way that Israel has conducted the war has also been very problematic in light of global norms. If we do not call out that it comes back and haunt even the arguments on Ukraine,” Eide said.

“To be frank it is a crisis of Western-initiated values, but they also have turned into a crisis of institutions. The response to that is to be very clear on our own practice, as Norway, with friends. If we believe certain things are right or wrong, we should apply them consequentially across the board.”

Gargash said that building bridges and making friends has been the UAE’s strategy. “We see ourselves more on the geo-economic phase of our foreign policy. That in itself reflects what are our priorities with regards to BRICS or any other international organization we seek to join.

“We are increasing and concretizing the sort of bridges that we have. We are looking at it more on the geo-economic perspective. We have no interest in creating further schisms within the international system. We have an interest in being able to reach out on all our friends, and create more opportunities.

“Countries like us cannot afford to be fatalistic, and see this things are happening anyway. I think we need to work, whether in smaller or larger groups, it depends really on the situation … whether we will be more effective working with an Arab consensus, then we will do it.

“We are interested in joining many other organizations, we are looking at it from the perspective of having more friends, more bridges, more economic opportunities rather than a rejection of something and an adoption of something else.”

Citing the China-US relationship in the past, the UAE official said that “we should remember that this is not 1945, it is our duty as other countries to emphasize always that we are not at that moment and we do not want to recreate that bipolarity of the past.”

Gargash added: “The important thing is it is our job, whenever the China-US relationship is on the table, not to think in (a) 1945 framework but to say this is a different world. India today is not the India of 1945, Europe is not the Europe of 1945. There are many other players, we cannot ease the other players out and think of just the two major parties.”