Who are the experts backing ICC warrants against Israel, Hamas leaders?
Some of the members of the ICC Expert Panel
Al Jazeera reports on 21 May 2024:
Karim Khan, the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC), released a statement on Monday saying he had applied for arrest warrants for top leaders of Israel and Hamas whom his team suspects of committing war crimes and “crimes against humanity” during and since the Hamas attack on southern Israel on October 7 last year in which about 1,140 people were killed.
Israel’s bombardment and ground invasion of the Gaza Strip, which has continued for more than seven months since that attack, has killed more than 35,000 people, mostly women and children, with thousands more lost and feared dead under the rubble.
The ICC is seeking arrest warrants for five individuals – Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, his Defence Minister Yoav Gallant, and Hamas leaders Yahya Sinwar, Mohamed Diab Ibrahim al-Masri (also known as Mohamed Deif) and Ismail Haniyeh.
In his statement, Khan praised the panel of experts he had convened to review the evidence and provide legal analysis to support these arrest warrants. He said its members have “immense standing in international humanitarian law and international criminal law”.
In an article for the Financial Times, the panel of experts collectively wrote that this is not the first time an international prosecutor has convened such a panel to seek advice regarding conflict and that it is not unusual for a prosecutor to invite external experts to participate in an evidence review.
Here is a closer look at who the experts on the panel are and what they said in their report to the ICC:
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What did the ICC panel conclude about Israel’s war on Gaza?
The report says the panel was convened so the experts could assess “objectively the material provided to them by the Prosecutor and to advise the Prosecutor whether it meets the relevant legal test”.
In the report:
The panel agrees with Khan’s assessment that the ICC has jurisdiction over the case since Palestine is a state party as per the ICC statute.
The panel adds that it knows investigations for additional crimes are under way and are “expected to lead to additional applications in the future”.
The experts write that “Hamas is a highly organised non-State armed group”, and the fighting between Israel and Hamas qualifies as non-international armed conflict between governmental forces and one or more armed groups.
However, the panel notes there is also international armed conflict between Israel and Palestine because the latter is a state “in accordance with criteria set out in international law”. The panel determines that both Israel and Palestine are “High Contracting Parties” which have ratified the Geneva Convention and there is a “belligerent occupation by Israel” over “at least some” of Palestine.