NAZARETH, (PIC)
Hebrew media reported on Saturday that Israel has filed a challenge to the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague and the legitimacy of its arrest warrants against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and Minister of Defense, Yoav Galant, on charges of committing war crimes.
The Maariv newspaper said that the Israeli Foreign Ministry filed an official objection on Friday to the ICC jurisdiction and the legitimacy of its Prosecutor, Karim Khan’s request to issue arrest warrants against Netanyahu and Galant.
Israel submitted two separate legal briefs in this context; in the first, it claimed that the court lacks the authority regarding the case in question, while in the second, it contended that the request for arrest warrants violates the Rome Statute of the ICC and the principle of complementarity, claiming that Israel should have been given “the opportunity to exercise its right to investigate by itself the claim raised by the Prosecutor, before proceeding.”
On May 20, the ICC Prosecutor, Karim Khan, applied for arrest warrants against Netanyahu and Gallant on charges for crimes against humanity.
About ten days ago, Khan called on the ICC Pre-Trial Chamber I to consider “with the utmost urgency” issuing arrest warrants against Netanyahu and Galant.
