By Michele Kambas
NICOSIA (Reuters) – European Union governments cannot pick and choose whether to implement arrest warrants issued by the International Criminal Court against two Israeli leaders and a senior Hamas official, the EU’s foreign affairs chief said on Saturday.
The ICC issued warrants on Thursday against the Prime Minister of Israel, Mr. Benjamin Netanyahu, the former Minister of Defense, Yoav Gallant, and the leader of Hamas, Ibrahim Al-Masri, for the crimes they are being accused of.
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All EU member states signed the ICC’s first treaty, called the Rome Statute.
Several EU countries have said they will fulfill their obligations under the law if necessary, but Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has invited Netanyahu to visit his country, assuring him that there is nothing wrong with doing so.
“Countries that have signed the Rome Convention are obliged to implement the court’s decision. It is not optional,” Josep Borrell, the EU’s high representative, said during a visit to Cyprus for a meeting of Israeli-Palestinian peace representatives.
The same obligations also bound countries that want to join the EU, he said.
“It would be ridiculous that the new members have an obligation that the current members do not fulfill,” he told Reuters.
The United States rejected the ICC decision and Israel said the ICC decision was unsatisfactory.
“Every time someone disagrees with the policy of one Israeli government – (they are) being accused of dissent,” said Borrell, whose term as EU foreign minister ends this month.
“I have the right to criticize what the Israeli government has decided, be it Mr. Netanyahu or anyone else, without being accused of opposing it. This is not acceptable. That’s enough.”
Israel’s 13-month occupation of Gaza has killed at least 44,000 Palestinians and displaced nearly all of the area’s population, creating a humanitarian crisis, Gaza officials say.
Israel launched the attack after an attack by Hamas on October 7, 2023, which killed 120,000 people in southern Israel, and took more than 250 hostages, Israel said.
In their decision, the ICC judges said there were reasonable grounds to believe that Netanyahu and Gallant were guilty of acts including murder, torture and starvation as a weapon of war as part of a “widespread and systematic attack against the citizens of Gaza”.
Masri’s document lists charges of mass murder during the attack on October 7, 2023. Israel claims to have killed Masri.
(Writing by Michele Kambas, Editing by Timothy Heritage)