[JPost] "Today.. we’ve applied for warrants to the pre-trial chamber of the ICC in relation to three individuals that are Hamas members," Khan said.
The International Criminal Court Chief is seeking arrest warrants for Hamas leaders Yahya Sinwar, Ismail Haniyeh, and Mohammed Deif, its Chief Prosecutor Karim Khan told CNN's Christiane Amanpour in an exclusive interview on Monday.
"Today.. we’ve applied for warrants to the pre-trial chamber of the ICC in relation to three individuals that are Hamas members," Khan said.
"Sinwar who’s in charge on the ground... Deif, who’s in charge of the Al Qassam Brigade and Haniyeh who is [in charge of their] political bureau based in Doha," Khan said.
His words ended the speculation about whether the ICC would issue such warrants, a step that its pre-trail chamber must still approve.
The charges against the Hamas leaders are "extermination, murder, taking of hostages, rape and sexual assault in detention," he said, adding that these are "the key crimes that are alleged to have been committed by these three individuals."
The world was shocked by Hamas’s October 7 attack against Israel, he said, as he referred to the event in which over 1,200 people were killed, and another 252 were seized as hostages, of which 128 remain in captivity.
"People were ripped from their bedrooms, from their homes, from the different Kibbutzim in Israel.
"People have suffered enormously, and we have a variety of evidence to support the applications that we've submitted to the judges," Khan stated.
The Chief Prosecutor also laid out the charges in the arrest warrant for Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for their role in the Gaza war. Hamas has claimed that over 35,000 Palestinians have been killed in that conflict, varying close to 25,000 of those deaths. Israel has said that 15,000 of those fatalities are combatants.
Khan said that the charges against the Israeli Prime Minister are "extermination, causing starvation as a method of war including the denial of humanitarian relief supplies [and] deliberately targeting civilians in conflict."His applications for warrants come as the International Court of Justice is adjudicating South Africa’s accusations that Israel was in violation of the 1948 genocide convention.
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