Ottawa:

After the United Kingdom, Canada said it would “abide” by the arrest warrant issued against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu by the International Criminal Court (ICC). “We stand up for international law, and we will abide by all the regulations and rulings of the international courts,” Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said. 

“This is just who we are as Canadians,” he added. 

The ICC issued arrest warrants for Israeli premier and his former defence minister Yoav Gallant on Thursday for “crimes against humanity” committed since the Israel-Hamas war began more than a year ago, triggered by the militant Palestinian group’s October 7, 2023 attack.

A warrant was also issued for Hamas’s military chief Mohammed Deif.

Earlier on Friday, the British government indicated that Netanyahu could be arrested on the ICC arrest warrant if he travelled to the UK.

Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s spokesman said: “The UK will always comply with its legal obligations as set out by domestic law and indeed international law.”

However, he refused to be drawn specifically on whether UK police would detain Netanyahu, telling reporters he would not “get into hypotheticals in relation to individual cases”.

Both the UK and Canada are part of the Five Eyes, an intelligence alliance also composed of Australia, New Zealand, and the United States. Other countries that agreed to follow through with the ICC’s decision include– Belgium, the European Union, France, Iran, Ireland, Jordan, The Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, South Africa, Switzerland, and Turkey among others.

Other key Five Eyes member US has, however, called the move ‘outrageous’. “The ICC issuance of arrest warrants against Israeli leaders is outrageous,” President Joe Biden said in a statement.

“Let me be clear once again: whatever the ICC might imply, there is no equivalence – none – between Israel and Hamas. We will always stand with Israel against threats to its security,” the statement added. 

However, the warrant was supported by US Senator Bernie Sanders, who took to X and said: “All launched indiscriminate attacks against civilians and caused unimaginable human suffering”.

“If the world does not uphold international law, we will descend into further barbarism,” he added.

Other countries to declare ‘disagreement’ with ICC decisions include– Argentina, Austria, and Hungary, among others. 

London:

The British government indicated on Friday that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu could be arrested on an International Criminal Court arrest warrant if he travelled to the UK.

The ICC on Thursday issued arrest warrants for Netanyahu and ex-defence minister Yoav Gallant in response to accusations of crimes against humanity and war crimes in Israel’s war on Hamas in Gaza, triggered by the Palestinian group’s October 7, 2023 attack.

Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s spokesman refused to be drawn specifically on whether UK police would detain Netanyahu, telling reporters he would not “get into hypotheticals in relation to individual cases”.

But he added: “The UK will always comply with its legal obligations as set out by domestic law and indeed international law.”

Britain signed the Rome Statute, the international treaty that created the ICC, in 1998 and ratified it three years later.

The UK’s ICC Act 2001 stipulates that when a government minister receives a request from the ICC for the arrest of an indictee they “shall transmit the request and the documents accompanying it” to an appropriate court.

“If the request is accompanied by a warrant of arrest and the appropriate judicial officer is satisfied that the warrant appears to have been issued by the ICC, he shall endorse the warrant for execution in the United Kingdom,” the act adds.

Officials say the act has not yet been used because someone charged by the ICC has never visited Britain.

It is not clear whether the UK court process begins after the ICC issues the arrest or once the indicted person lands on British soil.

“We would obviously fulfil our obligations under the act,” added Starmer’s spokesman.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

New Delhi:

Denouncing the International Criminal Court (ICC), Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu likened the court’s arrest warrant against him to the infamous Dreyfus trial of 1894.  The Dreyfus trial, which began in 1894, involved a Jewish French army officer falsely accused of treason based on fabricated evidence. 

The ICC’s move accuses Netanyahu and former Israeli defence minister Yoav Gallant of war crimes in the ongoing Gaza conflict, a decision Netanyahu lambasted as “anti-Semitic” and reflective of a “modern-day Dreyfus trial.”

“The anti-Semitic decision of the International Criminal Court is comparable to a modern-day Dreyfus trial – and it will end in the same way,” Netanyahu declared, referring to the wrongful conviction of Alfred Dreyfus, a Jewish French army officer, in a landmark case that exposed deep anti-Semitism in late 19th-century France.

The Dreyfus Affair was one of the most controversial legal scandals of 19th-century France, marked by anti-Semitism and judicial corruption. Alfred Dreyfus, a French Jewish army captain, was wrongfully convicted of treason in 1894 based on fabricated evidence. Stripped of his rank in a humiliating public ceremony and exiled to Devil’s Island, a former penal colony in french Guayana, Dreyfus’s plight became a symbol of systemic injustice and anti-Semitism.

French authorities accused Dreyfus of leaking military secrets based on a scrap of handwriting vaguely resembling his own. The trial, fueled by rampant anti-Semitism, resulted in a conviction despite evidence pointing to another officer, Ferdinand Esterhazy, as the true culprit. The case divided France, with prominent intellectuals like Émile Zola denouncing the injustice in his famous open letter, J’accuse…!

The ICC has issued warrants for Netanyahu and Gallant over alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza following Hamas’s brutal October 7 attacks on Israel. These attacks, which left over 1,400 Israelis dead and led to the kidnapping of hundreds, triggered a massive Israeli military response, resulting in immense loss of life and devastation in Gaza. The warrants mark the first time an Israeli head of state has been targeted by the court.

Netanyahu rejected the ICC’s actions as “absurd and false,” accusing Chief Prosecutor Karim Khan of corruption and alleging the decision was an attempt to distract from accusations of sexual harassment against Khan – charges Khan has denied. Israeli President Isaac Herzog described the ICC’s move as a “dark day for justice,” while Foreign Minister Gideon Saar said the court had “lost all legitimacy.”

Human rights group B’Tselem, however, welcomed the ICC’s actions, urging international enforcement of the warrants. The group called the warrants “a critical step toward accountability for leaders responsible for crimes committed in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.”