Portraying the prime minister of Israel as the equivalent to the leaders of Hamas is unacceptable, Poland's prime minister said on Tuesday (May 21), after the International Criminal Court prosecutor requested arrest warrants for both Israeli and Hamas leaders.
ICC prosecutor Karim Khan said on Monday (May 20) he had reasonable grounds to believe that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel's defence chief and three Hamas leaders "bear criminal responsibility" for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity.
He said he had applied for an arrest warrant for Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant as well as for Netanyahu. They have overseen Israel's offensive against Hamas in Gaza since the Palestinian militant group's deadly Oct. 7 raid on Israel.
Khan has also applied for arrest warrants for Hamas chief Yahya Sinwar; Mohammed Al-Masri, the commander-in-chief of the military wing of Hamas who is widely known as Deif; and Ismail Haniyeh, head of Hamas' Political Bureau.
Tusk: an unacceptable symmetry
"An attempt to show that the prime minister of Israel and the leaders of terrorist organisations are the same, and the involvement of international institutions in this, is unacceptable," Donald Tusk told a news conference.
"It is an obvious matter that what we are seeing here is an unacceptable political symmetry. It poses a dramatic question of why no one thought of issuing arrest warrants for Hamas leaders, leaders of the terrorist organization, before the war in Gaza had started," he added.
Tusk stressed he was not "a fan" of Netanyahu. "I've known him for a long time. I can tell that at the beginning of his career, ages ago, we were even friends in a sense, politically, but the political evolution of Prime Minister Netanyahu urges me to be very, very sceptical about what he is doing."
Israel urges "civilised world"
"I think he is a person jointly responsible for the new crisis wave in the Middle East," the Polish PM stressed.
A panel of pre-trial judges will determine whether the evidence supports the arrest warrants. But the court has no means to enforce such warrants, and its investigation into the Gaza war has been opposed by the United States and Israel.
Israel and Palestinian leaders have dismissed allegations of war crimes, and representatives for both sides criticised Khan's decision.
If such warrants are issued, members of the court, which includes nearly all countries of the European Union, could be put in a diplomatically difficult position.
Israel on Tuesday urged "nations of the civilised world" to oppose the International Criminal Court prosecutor's request.
U.S. will work on a response
The Biden administration is willing to work with Congress to respond to the International Criminal Court prosecutor's request for arrest warrants for Israeli leaders over the Gaza war, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Tuesday, amid Republican calls for U.S. sanctions against court officials.
Speaking at a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing, Blinken called the move "profoundly wrong-headed" and said it would complicate the prospects of reaching a hostage deal and a ceasefire in Israel's conflict with the Palestinian militant group Hamas.
Both President Joe Biden, a Democrat, and his political opponents have sharply criticized Khan's announcement, arguing the court does not have jurisdiction over the Gaza conflict and raising concerns over process.
The United States is not a member of the court, but has supported past prosecutions, including the ICC's decision last year to issue an arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin over the war in Ukraine.
Źródło: TVN24 News in English, Reuters