The lawsuit, filed yesterday in the US District Court for the District of Columbia, presents detailed allegations that Blinken has deliberately circumvented the Leahy Law through procedural mechanisms designed specifically to shield Israel from accountability. The Leahy Law explicitly bars US military aid to foreign security units credibly implicated in serious human rights abuses.

Blinken, who is Jewish, is accused of ignoring mounting evidence of Israeli crimes. The apartheid state stands accused of genocide by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) and it’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is wanted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) for war crimes and crimes against humanity.

The plaintiffs include Amal Gaza, a pseudonym for a mathematics teacher from Gaza who has been forcibly displaced seven times since October 2023 and lost 20 family members to Israeli attacks; Ahmed Moor, a US citizen whose relatives in Gaza face imminent threats from Israeli operations; siblings Said and Hadeel Assali, who have lost multiple family members including six cousins killed in an Israeli air strike in November; and Shawan Jabarin, executive director of the Palestinian human rights organisation Al-Haq.

The 39-page complaint outlines how the State Department has established what it calls the “Israel Leahy Vetting Forum” (ILVF), which the plaintiffs argue creates “distinct and insurmountable processes” to avoid enforcing the Leahy Law on Israel. The lawsuit contends that this special forum imposes uniquely burdensome procedures for reviewing allegations against Israeli forces that are not applied to any other country.

A striking element of the complaint highlights that while the State Department has suspended thousands of security units from other countries under the Leahy Law since its enactment in 1997 – including units from Bangladesh, Colombia, Mexico, and Nigeria – it has not suspended a single Israeli unit, despite extensive documentation of rights violations.

“Blinken of Arabia,” Digital, Dream / Dreamland v3, 2024

The lawsuit comes at a critical time, with the complaint noting that Israel has received approximately $17.9 billion in US military aid over the past year, effectively providing more than half of Israel’s weapons arsenal since October 2023. The plaintiffs argue this assistance has enabled Israeli forces to commit widespread human rights violations in Gaza and the West Bank.

The legal action seeks several remedies, including compelling Blinken to provide Israel with a list of units ineligible for US aid and obtain written assurances that such units will not receive assistance. It also calls for a permanent injunction prohibiting US aid to Israeli security units where credible evidence exists of human rights violations.

“This lawsuit demands one thing and one thing only: for the State Department to obey the law requiring a ban on assistance to abusive Israeli security forces,” said Sarah Leah Whitson, executive director of Democracy for the Arab World Now (DAWN), which is supporting the legal action. “For too long, the State Department has acted as if there’s an ‘Israel exemption’ from the Leahy Law, despite the fact that Congress required it to apply the law to every country in the world.”

The complaint particularly focuses on the State Department’s handling of credible reports of violations. It cites that while the Department’s own annual human rights reports consistently document Israeli security forces’ involvement in serious abuses, these findings have not triggered the mandatory restrictions required by the Leahy Law.

A specific example highlighted in the lawsuit involves the case of the Netzah Yehuda Battalion, which was implicated in the death of a 78-year-old American citizen of Palestinian origin, Omar Assad, yet continued to receive US assistance despite what plaintiffs argue was inadequate remediation of the incident.

The legal document alleges that the State Department’s calculated failure to apply the Leahy Law is “particularly shocking” given the unprecedented escalation of Israeli aggression since October 2023, citing findings by the ICJ regarding plausibly genocidal actions and the ICC’s arrest warrants for Israeli leaders.

Bruce Fein, counsel for the plaintiffs, filed the lawsuit under the Administrative Procedure Act arguing that Blinken’s actions and omissions constitute both procedural and substantive violations of the Leahy Law, undermining its core purpose of preventing US complicity in human rights abuses.

The case represents one of the most significant legal challenges to US military assistance to Israel and could have far-reaching implications for US foreign military aid policies if successful.

Via Middle East Monitor

The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Informed Comment.

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( Middle East Monitor ) – It was bound to happen. With continuing operations in Gaza and increasingly violent acts against Palestinians in the occupied territories, human rights organisations are making progressively severe assessments of Israel’s warring cause. While the world awaits the findings of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) on whether Israel’s campaign, as argued by South Africa, amounts to genocide, Amnesty International has already reached its conclusions.

In a 296-page report sporting the ominous title “You Feel Like You Are Subhuman”, the human rights body, after considering the events in Gaza between October 2023 and July 2024, identified a “pattern of conduct” indicating genocidal intent. These included, among other things, persistent direct attacks on civilians and objects; “deliberately indiscriminate strikes over the nine-month period, wiping out entire families repeatedly launched at times when these strikes would result in high numbers of casualties”; the nature of the weapons used; the speed and scale of destruction to civilian objects and infrastructure (homes, shelters, health facilities, water and sanitation infrastructure, agricultural land); the use of bulldozing and controlled demolitions and the use of incomprehensible, misleading and arbitrary evacuation orders.

The report does much to focus on statements from the highest officials to the common soldiery to reveal the mental state necessary to reveal genocide. One hundred two statements made by members of the Knesset, government officials and high-ranking commanders: “Dehumanised Palestinians, or called for, or justified genocidal acts or other crimes under international law against them.” The report also examined 62 videos, audio recordings and photographs posted online featuring gleeful Israeli soldiers rejoicing in the: “Destruction of Gaza or the denial of essential services to people in Gaza, or celebrated the destruction of Palestinian homes, mosques, schools and universities, including through controlled demolitions, in some cases without apparent military necessity.”

From its alternative universe, the Israeli public relations machine drew from its own agitprop specialists, working on mangling the language of the report. The formula is familiar: attack the authors first, not their premises. “The deplorable and fanatical organisation Amnesty International has once again produced a fabricated response that is entirely based on lies,” came the howl from Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesperson Oren Marmorstein.

Other methods of repudiation involve detaching Hamas and its war with Israel from any historical continuum, not least the fact that it was aided, supported and backed by Israel for years as a counter to Fatah in the West Bank. Isolating Hamas as a terrorist aberration also serves to treat it as alien, artificially foreign and not part of any resistance movement against suffocating Israeli occupation and strangulation. They, so goes this argument, are genocidal, and countering such a body can never be, by any stretch, genocidal. The pro-Israeli group NGO Monitor abides by this line of reasoning, calling allegations of genocide against Israel: “A reversal of the actual and clearly established intent of Hamas and its allies (including its patron, Iran) to wipe Israel off the map.”

Israel’s closest ally and sponsor, the US, proved predictable in rejecting the findings while still claiming to respect the humanitarian line. The US State Department’s principal deputy spokesperson, Vedant Patel, expressed disagreement with: “The conclusions of such a report. We had said previously and continue to find that the allegations of genocide are unfounded.” Patel did, however, pay lip service to the: “Vital role that civil society organisations like Amnesty International and human rights groups and NGOs play in providing information and analysis as it relates to Gaza and what’s going on.” Vital, but only up to a point.

Far less guarded assessments can be found in the US pro-Israeli chatter sphere. These follow the usual pattern. Orde Kittrie, senior fellow of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a name that can only imply that crimes committed in such a cause are bound to be justifiable, offers a neat illustration. Amnesty, he argues: “Systematically and repeatedly mischaracterises both the facts and the law.” Kittrie suggests his own mischaracterisation by parroting the Israel Defense Forces’ line that Hamas had: “Increased casualty counts by illegally using Palestinian civilian shields and by hiding weapons and war fighters in and below homes, hospitals, mosques, and other buildings.” This conveniently ignores the point that the numbers are not necessarily proof of genocidal intent, though it helps.

“Crimes against Humanity,” Digital, Dream / Dreamland v3 / Clip2Comic, 2024

The report also notes that, even in the face of such tactics by Hamas, Israel was still: “Obligated to take all feasible precautions to spare civilians and avoid attacks that would be indiscriminate or disproportionate.”

Amnesty International’s report is yet another addition to the gloomy literature on the subject. Human Rights Watch, in November, pointed to violations of the laws of war, crimes against humanity and the provisional measures of the ICJ issued urging Israel to abide by the obligations imposed by the United Nations Genocide Convention of 1948. The Israeli human rights organisation B’Tselem stated in no uncertain terms in October that: “Israel intends to forcibly displace northern Gaza’s residents by committing some of the gravest crimes under the laws of war.”

Battling over the designation of whether a campaign is genocidal can act as a distraction, a field of quibbles for paper-pushing pedants. The “specific intent” in proof must be unequivocally demonstrated and beyond any other reasonable inference. A smokescreen is thereby deployed that risks masking the broader ambit of war crimes and crimes against humanity. But no amount of pedantry and disagreement can arrest the sense that Israel’s lethal conduct, whatever threshold it may reach in international law, is directed at destroying not merely Palestinian life but any worthwhile sense of viable sovereignty. Amnesty Israel, while rejecting the central claim of the parent organisation’s report, did make one concession: the country’s brutal response following 7 October, 2023: “May amount to crimes against humanity and ethnic cleansing.”

The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor or Informed Comment.

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( Middle East Monitor ) – Turkiye’s Recep Tayyip Erdogan must be delighted about what is unfolding in Syria, though it is a feeling bound to be tempered by swiftly changing circumstances.  Iran’s Shia proxies have been weakened by relentless Israeli targeting and bombing.  Russia’s eyes and resources are turned towards war in Ukraine.  With reports that Syrian rebel groups are now fighting on the outskirts of the capital Damascus, the Assad regime looks frail, its leader either in hiding or evacuated.

In the salad mix of jihadis, nationalists, and run of the mill mercenaries, Turkiye’s hand looms large.  Its intervention in Syria’s conflict was motivated by two main goals: the containment, if not elimination of Kurdish militants in northern Syria, seen as indistinguishable from their PKK (Kurdistan Workers’ Party) counterparts in Turkiye itself, and creating conditions of stability or “safe zones” that would enable a return of Syrian refugees when feasible.

Since August 2016, Turkiye has made three incursions seizing parts of Syria’s north, imposing an occupation using regular troops and auxiliary forces including the Syrian National Army (SNA) and a coalition of groups comprising former Free Syrian Army (FSA) fighters.  In 2018, the Military Police was established by both Turkish authorities and the Syrian Interim Government (SIG), a force ostensibly intended to protect the civilian population.  Instead, this period of Turkish rule has been marked by brutality, repression and sheer neglect.

In its February 2024 report, Human Rights Watch documented instances of abductions, arbitrary arrests, unlawful detentions (these include children), sexual violence and torture.  The perpetrators spanned elements of the SNA, the Military Police, members of the Turkish Armed Forces, the Turkish National Intelligence Organisation (Milli İstihbarat Teşkilatı, MİT), and various military intelligence directorates.  To this colourfully gruesome range of cruelties can be added the abuse of property rights, looting, pillaging, confiscation of property, extortion and the absence of any consistent system of restitution.

The group enduring the heaviest burden of suffering are Kurdish residents, notably those that had received protection from the US-backed Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) comprising the People’s Protection Unit (Yekineyen Parastina Gel, YPG), and the Women’s Protection Unit (Yekineyen Parastina Jin).  These forces proved crucial in countering the Islamic State (ISIS) group.  In October this year, Erdogan reiterated the long held view that such Kurdish protective units were merely “the Syrian branch of the PKK terror group, destined to be abandoned, left isolated.”  Arabs and other groups seen as having links to the SDF and the Autonomous Administration of Northeast Syria (AANES) have also been targets of Turkish-led ire.

The SNA is no friend of the headline grabbing Islamist outfit, Hayat Tahrir-al Sham (HTS), the primary spear in the lighting operation against the Assad regime.  HTS has marketed itself as a self-sufficient, modern, more considered group, less fire and brimstone from its al-Qaeda and al-Nusra iterations and supposedly more tolerant to other religions, sects and views.  Its leader, Abu Mohammad Al-Jolani, has managed to receive praise and plaudits in the Western media for that change, despite his listing by the US State Department as a “Specially Designated Global Terrorist” worthy of a $10 million reward to anyone willing to offer information leading to his capture.

Even on the progress of HTS, Turkish influence cannot be discounted, despite Ankara eschewing open support for the group.  As Fuad Shahbazov, writing for the Stimson Center remarks, the recent advances of HTS “would have been unthinkable without Turkiye’s military and logistical backing, and provision of advanced weaponry.”  It has also been suggested that Ankara gave a nod of approval to the offensive led by HTS after it failed to secure a rapprochement with Assad.

Erdogan’s statements on the advance show a slippery mind in operation.  On December 6, he told reporters after Friday prayers that the target of the offensive was evidently Damascus.  “I would say we hope for this advance to continue without any issues.”  But he also expressed the view that these advances were “problematic” and “not in a manner we desire”.  While not elaborating on that point, it could be gleaned from the remarks that he is concerned about various “terrorist organisations” operating in the rebel forces.

OPINION: As predicted, the revolution in Syria has reignited

The next day, the Turkish President decided to be lofty in his assessment as the rebels entered the suburbs of Homs.  “There is now a new reality in Syria, politically and diplomatically,” he declared in a speech delivered in the southern Turkish city of Gaziantep.  “And Syria belongs to Syrians with all its ethnic, sectarian and religious elements.”

In keeping with the views of other leaders responsible for intervening in the affairs of another state, Erdogan spoke of Syrian independence as viable, the will of its people as inviolable.  “The people of Syria are the ones who will decide the future of their own country.”  He hoped that the country would “quickly regain the peace, stability, and tranquillity it has been longing for 13 years.”  He went on to remark that “responsible actors and all international organisations” should support the preservation of the state’s territorial integrity.

The audacity of such statements does nothing to conceal the sectarian and ethnic dangers unfolding at the end of this Ankara-sponsored mission.  The fall of Bashar al-Assad will imperil Shia communities and do even more harm to the Kurds, leaving the door open for Salafism.  The rebel groups, only united by the common cause of overthrowing Assad, may well find battling each other hard to avoid.  As for the territorial integrity Erdogan speaks of, Turkish officialdom and policy will never wear it short of any number of guarantees Ankara is bound to extort on hefty terms.  And as for refugees?  Expect many more to gush out in desperation.

The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor or Informed Comment.

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France 24 English: “Syria at risk of ‘fragmentation’: Amid ‘scenes of popular joy’, Syrians worried about ‘what’s next’

In an interview with the Israeli newspaper Maariv, Ben-Gvir confirmed that the plan includes two main elements, claiming that it is an ethical and logical proposal that benefits both Palestinians and Israelis.

The Hebrew newspaper noted that Ben-Gvir’s remarks came in response to Trump’s statement about his intention to broker a ceasefire in Gaza and secure the release of prisoners before his inauguration on 20 January.

In related news, US media reported yesterday that Qatar has resumed its role as a key mediator in Gaza. It is anticipated that Hamas’ negotiating team will return to Doha soon.

Qatari Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Sheikh Mohammed Bin Abdulrahman Bin Jassim Al Thani stated on Wednesday that Hamas’ office in Doha was established for negotiations at the request of the US and Israel. He added that this office has facilitated ceasefire agreements since 2014.

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DawnNews English: “‘Settlement In Gaza Should Be Encouraged’, Says Israeli Minister | Dawn News English”

“I speak on behalf of the commanders who serve in northern Gaza. There are war crimes being committed there,” Ya’alon told the Israeli public broadcaster KAN.

“IDF (army) soldiers are putting their lives at risk and will be subject to lawsuits in the International Criminal Court,” he said.

“I have to warn about what is happening there (in northern Gaza) and what they are trying to hide from us, where they are committing war crimes.”

On Saturday, the former defense minister accused Israel of carrying out “ethnic cleansing” in northern Gaza, accusing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of leading the country to “ruin.”

“I take responsibility for what I said about ethnic cleansing in northern Gaza,” Ya’alon said.

He also criticized far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich’s call for the displacement of Gaza’s population.

“Smotrich is proud of the opportunity to reduce Gaza’s population by half,” he said. “What do you call that? He has no moral issue with killing two million Gazans. We were once a democratic state.”

Last month, Smotrich had called for the reoccupation of Gaza and suggested reducing its population by half through encouraging what he calls the “voluntary migration” of Palestinians from the territory.

Several Israeli ministers have called for re-occupying Gaza and reducing its Palestinian population by encouraging what they term as voluntary migration amid Tel Aviv’s deadly onslaught on the enclave.

Since Oct. 5, Israel has launched a large-scale ground operation in northern Gaza to allegedly prevent Palestinian resistance group Hamas from regrouping. Palestinians, however, accuse Israel of seeking to occupy the area and forcibly displace its residents.

Since then, no humanitarian aid, including food, medicine, and fuel, was allowed into the area, leaving most of the population there on the verge of imminent famine.

More than 2,300 people have since been killed, according to Palestinian health authorities.

The onslaught was the latest episode in Israel’s genocidal war on the Gaza Strip that has killed nearly 44,400 people, mostly women and children, since Oct. 7, 2023.

On Nov. 21, the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza.

Israel also faces a genocide case at the International Court of Justice for its deadly war on Gaza.

READ: Over 415,000 displaced Gazans sheltering in UN schools: UNRWA

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Middle East Eye: “Israel ‘ethnically cleansing’ north Gaza says former Israeli defence minister”

The Court of Appeal in The Hague in February ordered the government to stop exporting components due to concerns that they would be used to violate international law in the Gaza war, prompting the government to say that it would appeal to the Supreme Court.

“According to the advocate general (of the Supreme Court), the Court of Appeal was justified in finding that there is a clear risk that Israel’s F-35 fighter jets are being used to commit serious violations of international humanitarian law in the Gaza Strip,” the court’s advisor explained.

The Netherlands houses one of several regional warehouses of US-owned F-35 components, which are distributed to countries that request them, including Israel, which has requested at least one shipment since 7 October, 2023.

The Supreme Court said it would rule on the appeal as soon as possible, without giving a specific date.

br> Image by Military_Material from Pixabay

Human rights groups that brought the case against the state, including Oxfam Netherlands, welcomed the court’s recommendation.

“The government should wait no longer and change course. The complicity in the atrocious violence in Gaza needs to stop as quickly as possible,” the group urged in a statement.

Gaza officials confirmed the Israeli war has killed nearly 44,200 people and caused nearly all of Gaza’s population to be displaced at least once, while vast areas of the territory have been destroyed.

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( Middle East Monitor ) – As soon as the arrest warrant was issued against the head of the Occupation government, the Occupation went mad, between shock and thinking of ways to appeal the decision, reject it or harming the ICC, as a whole. In the meantime, Netanyahu’s political and field missiles continued to bombard Palestine, the Palestinians, Lebanon and the Lebanese, in a bold attempt to confirm that the arrest warrants will be of no use on the ground, as they did not stop the war, nor did they alleviate the impact of the Zionist fire and gunpowder on the Palestinian and Lebanese peoples.

Indifference is the position that Netanyahu pretended to take shortly after the arrest warrants were issued, armed with the Biden administration’s rejection of them, and the position of some of Netanyahu’s supporters, such as the Prime Minister of Hungary. There was also the reluctance of others to reveal their position on the warrant, such as Germany, the Czech Republic and others.

Relying on the idea that “the best defence is a good offense”, Netanyahu intensified his forces’ progression towards Beit Lahia, Jabalia and Gaza City, in addition to their difficult advancement towards the Litani River. Meanwhile, his forces continued to prevent aid from entering the Gaza Strip, leaving the displaced Palestinians prey to the wind, cold and rain, without shelter or mercy, amidst the insistence to evacuate the depths of the Shuja’iyya and Zeitoun areas. This came at a time when his forces bombed Kamal Adwan Hospital in the northern Gaza Strip, along with ramping up the number of arrests of Palestinians, specifically in Gaza. It reached the point that Israel felt no embarrassment in admitting that more than a quarter of the Palestinian prisoners have scabies because they have been deprived of treatment and care, as well as the basics of life.

This situation completely overlapped with the escalation of the situation in the West Bank. However, Netanyahu’s ambitions did not end with confronting an attack with an attack, but rather by silently searching for a way out of his growing predicament through a ceasefire deal in Lebanon, by agreeing to give France the opportunity to return to the negotiations for the Lebanon deal and gain the honour of announcing a ceasefire. According to Israel’s Channel 13, this ceasefire seems to be in exchange for the French President using what is known as personal immunity to prevent Netanyahu’s arrest and suspend the arrest warrant on French soil.

“International Criminal Court Martyred,” Digital, Midjourney / Clip2Comic, 2024

However, the price of accepting the deal with Lebanon was not limited to this, but rather included the US President’s agreement to lift the ban on a new shipment of heavy weapons to the Occupying state, according to Kan news channel, as well as giving the green light to his coalition partner, the far right Finance Minister, Bezalel Smotrich, who said that half of Gaza’s population will emigrate within two years, and that Israel has the right to annex some of the Strip’s territory. A few hours before the Court’s decision, the US used its veto in the Security Council against the ceasefire draft bill in Gaza in order to provide Netanyahu with leverage in a way that enables him to prolong the war, which he needs to last so he can remain in power, according to Lapid and Lieberman, who are opposed to Netanyahu himself. All this comes in the context of an attempt to stop the storm caused by the ICC decision, but some believe that its timing provides Netanyahu with a pretext to annex the West Bank as a retaliatory step against it, and he would thus have achieved his goal.

Whatever their position, no one can deny the importance of the ICC decision, and its role in changing the course of the current holocaust in one way or another, either negatively or positively. Will the political and field realities witness dramatic changes in the coming days, or will destroying everything continue in order to meet Netanyahu’s ambitions? We will wait and see!

This article appeared in Arabic in Al-Quds on 26 November, 2024.

The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor or Informed Comment.

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Haq told a press briefing that the UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) attempted 41 humanitarian missions to reach Palestinians in the besieged areas of northern Gaza this month. “Our colleagues in OCHA report that none of the 41 attempts to reach Palestinians in besieged areas of northern Gaza with life-saving assistance this month has been facilitated by the Israeli authorities.”

He added that Israel blocked 37 of the attempts while “four missions were approved, but then impeded on the ground and accomplished only partially.”

The spokesperson warned further that thousands of forcibly displaced Palestinians are “even more vulnerable” as winter approaches, with overcrowded conditions leading to severe sanitation issues. He noted that the build-up of sewage in densely populated areas is also a significant health threat.

Moreover, Haq dismissed claims that the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) has evacuated its HQ building in occupied East Jerusalem. Such reports, he said, are unfounded.

“UNRWA said that it maintains its operation in the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and in the Gaza Strip for the benefit of Palestine Refugees,” noted Haq, adding the agency “will continue to undertake its operations and programmes despite increased attempts to actively prevent it from implementing its mandate.”

The UN official also rejected claims by the Wall Street Journal that the UN Special Adviser on the Prevention of Genocide, Alice Wairimu Nderitu, was not reappointed due to her alleged refusal to classify the Gaza crisis as genocide.

“That is false,” explained Haq. “Ms. Nderitu’s contract is coming to an end today, but she has now fulfilled her full term and the secretary-general [Antonio Guterres] certainly appreciates the work she did as special advisor on the prevention of genocide.” Regarding the definition of genocide, he added, any idea that the secretary-general wanted her term to end because of that is just false. “Ms. Nderitu had a prevention mandate, and what she did under that prevention mandate is point out the risk factors for genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity, and we appreciated that work.”

Haq said on Wednesday, “The World Food Programme reported that all bakeries in central Gaza have shut down due to severe supply shortages, exacerbating the food crisis. The Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs warned of worsening malnutrition, with two-thirds of acute malnutrition cases among children recorded in the last five months. Aid efforts are ongoing, with stabilization centers for malnourished children operating under significant constraints.”

This work by Middle East Monitor is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. (A paragraph was added from Wednesday’s briefing.).

“France is committed to international justice and its independence,” Barrot said in an interview for France 3 TV channel.

“We have been saying from the very beginning that Israel has the right to defend itself within the framework of respect for international law.”

“Each time Israel violates international law, blocking access to aid, bombing civilians, forcibly displacing them, establishing colonies in the West Bank.”

He added they “strongly” condemn these actions.

Asked if he supported the ICC’s arrest warrant for Netanyahu, Barrot said: “I cannot put myself in the position of the court in any circumstance.”

Barrot argued that the ICC’s arrest warrant amounted to “the formalization of the accusation against certain politicians.”

Regarding the question of whether Netanyahu would be arrested if he visited France, Barrot said: “France will always apply international law.”

The ICC, in a landmark move on Thursday, issued arrest warrants for Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza.

Israel has launched a genocidal war on the Gaza Strip following a cross-border attack by the Palestinian group Hamas in October last year, killing more than 44,000 people, most of them women and children.

It has also engaged in cross-border warfare with Lebanon, launching an air campaign in late September against what it claims are Hezbollah targets.

Israel faces a genocide case at the International Court of Justice for its war on Gaza.

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Al Jazeera English: “ICC issues arrest warrants for Netanyahu and Gallant. What’s next? | The Take”