Before the ICC, Israel and Hamas oppose a request to detain leaders for war crimes.

Both Israel and Hamas, who are currently fighting fiercely in the Gaza Strip, fiercely opposed attempts on Monday to have their leaders detained for war crimes in front of an international court.

Prosecutor Karim Khan of the International Criminal Court said he had requested arrest warrants for key Hamas and Israeli officials in connection with the fighting.

Hamas, the militant Palestinian organisation, declared that it “strongly condemns” the proposal, while Israel denounced the demand as a “historical disgrace” that targets Defence Minister Yoav Gallant and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

United States, Israel’s strongest friend, joined the censure, but France declared that it was in favour of the court’s autonomy and its “fight against impunity”.

“With disgust, I reject The Hague prosecutor’s comparison between democratic Israel and the mass murderers of Hamas,” stated Netanyahu.

In a statement, Khan stated that he was requesting warrants for the Israeli officials to be charged with crimes such as “starvation,” “wilful killing,” and “extermination and/or murder.”

According to him, Israel was a part of “a widespread and systematic attack against the Palestinian civilian population” that began with Hamas’s historic October 7 strike, and during the conflict, Israel had committed “crimes against humanity.”

Khan added that Yahya Sinwar, the commander of Gaza, and Ismail Haniyeh, who is located in Qatar, “bear criminal responsibility” for the deeds carried out during the October 7 attack.

He listed these as “torture,” “rape and other acts of sexual violence,” and “taking hostages.”

“International law and the laws of armed conflict apply to all,” Khan stated. “No foot soldier, no commander, no civilian leader — no one — can act with impunity.”

Josep Borrell, the head of EU foreign policy, pointed out that if the warrants were approved by the ICC judges, any of the 124 ICC member states would theoretically have to detain Netanyahu and the others if they came there.

Nevertheless, the court lacks a way to make its warrants effective.

“There is no equivalency — none — between Israel and Hamas,” declared US President Joe Biden in response to the ICC bid, calling it “outrageous.”

Germany concurred, stating that the warrants presented “a false impression of equivalency” through a spokesman for the foreign ministry.

In a different court, the UN International Court of Justice, where South Africa has claimed that Israel’s war in Gaza is genocidal, Biden likewise dismissed allegations.

“What’s happening is not genocide,” Biden declared on Monday at a White House ceremony celebrating Jewish American Heritage Month.

The change at the ICC was welcomed by South Africa.

“Where are we going?”

Israeli forces are still engaged in combat with Hamas in the far-southern Gaza city of Rafah as well as other flashpoints in the central and northern regions of the territory.

Nearly two weeks ago, Israel moved forces into the congested civilian area of Rafah, which the military has termed as the final Hamas stronghold, defying international condemnation.

Netanyahu has pledged to continue the war against Hamas in Gaza until the Islamist organisation supported by Iran is vanquished and all captives are freed.

More than 812,000 Palestinians, according to the UN, had left Rafah, which is close to the Egyptian border.

“The question that haunts us is: where will we go?” stated 46-year-old Palestinian resident in need Sarhan Abu al-Saeed. “Certain death is chasing us from all directions.”

Medical professionals reported an airstrike on a residential structure in the western part of Rafah, while witnesses told AFP that Israeli naval troops had also targeted the city.

According to the IDF, Israeli forces had discovered “dozens of tunnel shafts” and “eliminated over 130 terrorists” in eastern Rafah while “conducting targeted raids on terrorist infrastructure”.

“Abruptly collapsing”

Based on Israeli official data, an AFP tally shows that more than 1,170 people, largely civilians, died as a result of Hamas’s strike on Israel on October 7, which precipitated the start of the conflict.

Approximately 250 hostages were taken by Hamas during the attack; 124 of them are still in Gaza, including 37 that the IDF claims are dead.

At least 35,562 individuals have died in Gaza as a result of Israel’s retaliatory offensive against Hamas, the majority of whom were civilians, according to the health ministry of the Hamas-run region.

The bodies of four hostages who were freed from Gaza last week were discovered in tunnels beneath Jabalia in the north, the Israeli military announced on Monday.

Israeli forces have been engaged in combat in the country’s north and centre, where it was previously said that the majority of the jihadist population had been driven out. It claimed to have killed 200 militants in Jabalia.

The 2.4 million residents of the long-blockaded Gaza Strip are now without regular access to fuel, food, clean water, medications, and supplies due to Israel’s siege of the area.

Only infrequent relief supplies by air, land, and sea have lessened the hardship; nevertheless, truck arrivals have virtually stopped due to the Rafah operation.

Thirteen of Gaza’s thirty-six hospitals are closed, and the other eighteen are “on the verge of collapse, with more than 9,000 severely injured people at risk of dying,” according to a warning from the European Union.

According to the military, airstrikes are still occurring throughout Gaza, especially on Gaza City in the north.

According to Gaza’s civil defence, an airstrike on the Sheikh Radwan district of Gaza City resulted in the recovery of eight dead and many wounded.

At their meeting on Sunday, US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan advised Israel to connect the military campaign against Hamas to a “political strategy” for Gaza’s future.

Washington has pushed for both a wider diplomatic agreement that would normalise relations between Saudi Arabia and Israel as well as a post-war plan for Gaza that involves Palestinians and is backed by regional powers.

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