Rabia Ali 

For days now, there is growing speculation that the International Criminal Court (ICC) is poised to issue arrest warrants against top Israeli officials for the ongoing war on Gaza.

Most of the hype has been fueled by Israel itself, first with regular reports by Israeli news outlets about increasing apprehension among the top brass, followed by direct statements from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu attacking the ICC and urging his Western allies to pressure the court.

Another tactic employed by Israel and its supporters, particularly the US, has been to question the ICC’s power and jurisdiction to act against Israeli officials.

Spokespersons for the White House and the US State Department have explicitly conveyed that the US does not believe the ICC has jurisdiction to move against Israel, specifically because Israel is not a signatory to the Rome Statute, the international treaty that forms the basis of the ICC.

Legal scholars, however, have refuted these assertions, stressing that Israel not recognizing the ICC or not being a signatory to the Rome Statute does not have any impact on the court’s powers.

The ICC has been leading an investigation since 2021 into potential war crimes committed by Israel and Palestinian groups dating back to 2014. The probe has grown to include ongoing attacks in the war in Gaza.

“Palestine is a state party to the ICC, and the ICC has accepted that it has jurisdiction over crimes committed in Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem,” Gerhard Kemp, a professor of criminal law at the University of the West of England Bristol Law School, told Anadolu.

The ICC also has jurisdiction over crimes committed by Palestinian nationals outside the territory of Palestine, for example in Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, he said.

“The short answer is that there is not much that Israel can do to challenge the ICC jurisdiction over the alleged crimes committed in Palestine,” he explained.

Another legal expert Mark Kersten asserted that the ICC is able to “very clearly, logically and legally exercise jurisdiction in this case.”​​​​​​​

The ICC has territorial jurisdiction on Palestine, which it understands as the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, he said.

First, this means it has jurisdiction over any crimes committed by citizens of Palestine, so it has the power to act against Hamas members for the Oct. 7 attacks, even though most of it happened on the territory of a non-state party, Israel, he said.

“Second, it has jurisdiction over any crimes committed on the territory of Palestine … which means it has jurisdiction over any Israeli authorities who have committed mass atrocities, international crimes in Gaza or the West Bank,” explained Kersten, assistant professor of criminal justice and criminology at the University of the Fraser Valley in Canada.

– ‘Attempts to interfere, undermine and threaten ICC’

In the current situation, Kersten said the ICC is facing immense pressure from various countries, including Israel and the US.

“There’s definitely ongoing political pressure … I think pressure is probably too soft of a term. I have no doubt that various states are effectively threatening the ICC with certain consequences,” he said.

“There are definitely ongoing attempts to interfere, undermine and threaten the ICC. It is up to the ICC prosecutor and, indeed to a certain extent the judges, to withstand that.”

On Friday, Prosecutor Karim Khan’s office issued a sharply worded statement asserting that “all attempts to impede, intimidate or improperly influence (ICC) officials must cease immediately.”

“Such threats, even when not acted upon, may also constitute an offense against the administration of justice under Article 70 of the Rome Statute,” read the statement, without mentioning any cases or countries.

Kersten pointed out that pressure tactics are “nothing new” for the ICC, with both the US and Israel having previously threatened the court.

The administration of ex-President Donald Trump even “issued sanctions against the prosecutor and certain other ICC staff, as well as threatening to sanction their families,” he recalled.

“We have seen US policymakers and lawmakers say the same, that they would support literally sanctioning the only independent permanent international criminal tribunal in the world,” Kersten added.

What happens if warrants are issued?

According to the swirling reports, the Israeli leaders who could soon be facing ICC warrants include Netanyahu, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant and Israeli military chief Herzi Halevi.

If warrants are issued, all 124 countries that are state parties to the ICC are obligated to act.

“If an arrest warrant is issued against Netanyahu, he cannot legally step onto the territory of Germany or the UK or Canada,” said Kersten.

Being ICC member states, these countries will be obligated under both their own laws and also international law “to arrest and surrender Netanyahu to the ICC,” he said.

Non-state parties, however, do not have that obligation, he added.

On a potential timeline, Kersten said the ICC has often released “some of its most important and most significant decisions … at around 4 p.m. Hague time on a Friday, when the media isn’t really covering these issues.”

As for the possible basis of the warrant, he said it could be “about the issues of starvation or the denial of aid to Gaza,” adding that these are points “the prosecutor has spoken about repeatedly, especially since Oct. 7.”

Kersten also believes that any warrant against Netanyahu would be “unsealed” and publicly announced, citing past examples of warrants against Russian President Vladimir Putin or Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi.

However, there have been instances in the past where ICC judges have accepted the prosecutor’s request to issue sealed arrest warrants, he said.

These can then be unsealed in “a moment of vulnerability for the accused, for example, during travel to a member state of the ICC,” he added.

“Then, all of a sudden, that state has the obligation to catch the accused and surrender them to the ICC, in this massive kind of surprise moment,” said Kersten.

For someone as high-profile as Netanyahu, the expert reiterated that he does not believe a “sealed arrest warrant” is likely.

“It would be diplomatically inappropriate to issue a sealed arrest warrant for the head of a government … or a defense minister,” he said.

Complementarity challenge

While Israel has no standing when it comes to questioning the ICC’s jurisdiction, the one thing it can do is challenge the admissibility of any case in which warrants are issued on the basis of complementarity, according to Kemp, the Bristol Law School professor.

“This is because the ICC has complementary jurisdiction, meaning the ICC can only try a case if a national criminal justice system with jurisdiction over the matter is either unwilling or unable to try the case,” he said.

When Israeli nationals are accused of war crimes in Gaza, if Israel can show that its own courts will prosecute them “in a genuine prosecution and not a sham trial, then the ICC will stand back and will let Israel proceed with the case,” he explained.

“Of course, the ICC will evaluate the situation with reference to all the available facts,” Kemp added.​​​​​​​

(Source: AA)

Oliver Laughland

Police began clearing out protesters at New York University (NYU) in downtown Manhattan on Friday as pressure continued to build on the city’s mayor, Eric Adams, to divulge more details on identities and affiliations of those within the 282 people arrested at uptown Columbia and City College of New York (CCNY) on Tuesday night – after he blamed “outside agitators” for prompting a crackdown.

Campuses elsewhere were relatively quiet overnight, while the recent weeks of escalated pro-Palestinian protests across more than 40 campuses nationwide have resulted in almost 2,200 arrests, according to an Associated Press tally.

The New York police department (NYPD) deputy commissioner of operations, Kaz Daughtry, posted on X on Friday morning that NYU requested police assistance “to disperse the illegal encampment on their property”. Daughtry said police “are on site”.

Officers arrested 13 protesters at NYU and 43 at the New School on Friday morning, the NYPD said.

On Thursday, the Guardian and other media pushed the NYPD and the mayor to give more details on non-students arrested at protests in New York earlier this week, whom Adams said unduly influenced students in particular at Columbia to occupy a building on campus, which police cleared on Tuesday night.

The NYPD issued a press release saying that among those arrested at Columbia, “approximately 29% of individuals were not affiliated” with the school, while 60% of people arrested at CCNY protests were not affiliated with the school. It was not immediately clear how the police were defining “affiliation”, and the release did not break down arrest figures in further detail.

“What we have seen, and what has been made clear by the evidence emerging after this week’s arrests, is that professional, external actors are involved in these protests and demonstrations,” the NYPD commissioner, Edward Caban, said in the release. “These individuals are not university students, they are not affiliated with either the institutions or campuses in question, and they are working to escalate the situation.”

One police officer accidentally discharged his gun inside Columbia’s Hamilton Hall while clearing out protesters camped inside on Tuesday night, authorities said. No one was injured, the NYPD said on Thursday. He was trying to use the flashlight attached to his gun at the time and instead fired a single round that struck a frame on the wall.

There were other officers but no students in the immediate vicinity, officials said. Body-camera footage shows when the officer’s gun went off, but the district attorney’s office is conducting a review, a standard practice.

A tally by the Associated Press recorded at least 56 incidents of arrests at 43 different US colleges or universities since 18 April. The figures are based on AP reporting and statements from universities and law enforcement agencies.

Early on Thursday, officers surged against a crowd of demonstrators at University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), ultimately taking at least 200 protesters into custody.

Students have stepped up their protests, demanding a complete ceasefire in Gaza and divestment by their universities in companies with ties to Israel.

Israel has branded the protests antisemitic, while Israel’s critics say it uses those allegations to silence opposition. Although some protesters have been caught on camera making antisemitic remarks or violent threats, protest organizers – some of whom are Jewish – call it a peaceful movement to defend Palestinian rights and protest the war.

Joe Biden on Thursday defended the right of students to peaceful protest but decried the disorder of recent days.

Meanwhile, protest encampments at other schools across the US have been cleared by police – resulting in more arrests – or closed voluntarily, some with an agreement with protesters not to disrupt commencements.

(Source: The Guardian)

Starbucks continues to feel the weight of global boycott campaigns over its support of Israel’s war in Gaza which has claimed the lives of over 34,500 Palestinians, the majority of them women and children.

The coffee chain announced a sharp decline in global sales; the worst since the pandemic, which resulted in its share price dropping to a 21-month low. Starbucks reported a 15 per cent drop in net income (to $772 million) compared to this time last year.

Global boycott campaigns have also forced the company to lower its profit forecast for the fiscal year 2024 as the performance of its cafes is expected to remain weak in the near future.

“In a challenging environment, this quarter’s results do not reflect the strength of our brand, our capabilities or the opportunities ahead,” CEO Laxman Narasimhan said in a statement.

The company has been trying to counter what it describes as “ongoing false and misleading information being shared about Starbucks” online.

In October, Starbucks sued Workers United, which has organised workers in at least 370 US Starbucks stores, over a pro-Palestinian message posted on a union social media account.

Starbucks said it was trying to get the union to stop using its name and likeness as the post also drew protests from pro-Israel demonstrators.

Since the start of Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza, Starbucks has seen a continual drop in sales and profits as a result of its actions.

(Source: MEMO)

Health workers in the Gaza Strip held a demonstration to thank university students in the US and Europe for their protests in solidarity with Palestine.

A statement by the government’s Gaza’s government media office said that dozens of health workers gathered at Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir al-Balah to thank the students for their demonstrations in support of Palestine and in response to the genocide in Gaza.

Speaking at the demonstration, hospital spokesperson Dr. Khalil al-Dakran said that Israel carried out more than 3,000 massacres, killing more than 40,000 people, mostly women and children, and wounding at least 70,000 people.

Stating that more than 2,000 people were displaced in Gaza, Dakran said that more than 370,000 houses were destroyed and the bodies of about 10,000 people are still under the rubble of the houses.

He said that Israel targeted and destroyed most of the hospitals and turned them into military barracks and mass graves, adding that 32 hospitals and 53 health centers were out of service and 126 ambulances were destroyed.

Dakran said that 495 doctors, nurses and other health personnel working in hospitals were killed in the attacks, more than 1,500 people were injured and 310 health personnel were detained.

He added: “These protests by university students in the US and Europe, and all free people around the world, are a moral and humanitarian revolution aimed at ending the injustice and genocide against the Palestinian people.

“We express our eternal gratitude to these heroic students, to the lecturers who contributed to the defense of Gaza against genocide, and to the Arab and foreign medical personnel who stood by us to treat the wounded and sick.”

Student protests that started at the US’s Columbia University on April 17 spread to other schools across the US and other countries across the world.

Thousands of students from many countries, including the US, Canada, Australia, France, and Egypt have staged demonstrations at their universities in solidarity with Palestine.

Israel has waged an unrelenting offensive on the Palestinian enclave since a cross-border attack by the Palestinian group Hamas last Oct. 7 which killed some 1,200 people.

Tel Aviv has also imposed a crippling blockade on the Gaza Strip, leaving its population, particularly residents of northern Gaza, on the verge of starvation.

More than six months into the Israeli war, vast swathes of Gaza lay in ruins, pushing 85% of the enclave’s population into internal displacement amid a crippling blockade of food, clean water and medicine, according to the UN.

Israel stands accused of genocide at the International Court of Justice. An interim ruling in January ordered Tel Aviv to stop genocidal acts and take measures to guarantee that humanitarian assistance is provided to civilians in Gaza.

(Source: AA)

Students at five elite UK universities set up pro-Palestinian encampments on Wednesday as international protests over Israel’s war on Gaza continued to spread.

Encampments were launched by students at Bristol, Leeds, Manchester, Newcastle, and Sheffield universities – all part of the UK’s prestigious Russell Group of higher education institutions, with more schools expected to join the burgeoning movement.

Pro-Palestinian encampments and protests have already hit universities across the world, including Columbia in the US, the Sorbonne in France, the American University of Beirut in Lebanon, Sydney in Australia, and University College London and Warwick in Britain.

“My message for the people of Gaza is… we’re still fighting, we’re not giving up,” Sophie Smart, 18, an undergraduate biology student at the University of Sheffield, told The New Arab.

“We’re here for you. Everyone’s on your side. The world is on Gaza’s side. And we will free Palestine.”

Along with dozens of others, Smart attended a rally that took place as tents were set up at her university. She said she was considering camping out.

The encampment is led by the Sheffield Campus Coalition for Palestine (SCCP), a group of students, staff, and alumni at Sheffield and Sheffield Hallam universities, which are located in the same northern English city.

Demands for divestment

SCCP is asking the University of Sheffield to comply with three demands in order to end the encampment: divestment from weapons manufacturing, the ending of all ties with Israeli universities, and accountability.

The coalition says it holds the university accountable for its “complicity in the genocide of the Palestinian people” and that the academic institution shouldn’t be “aiding in supplying instruments of warfare to a genocidal state”.

A submission for a 2021 UK-wide research assessment programme said the University of Sheffield’s work had “pioneered a novel, fully automated manufacturing process” used since 2015 at a BAE Systems site in Samlesbury, a village in northern England.

The submission said the process had been used at the arms firm’s site to produce fuselage panels for more than 500 F-35 warplanes.

BAE Systems said last year that it produces the rear fuselage for all F-35s globally at its facilities in Samlesbury.

Israel finalised an agreement in 2010 to buy around 20 of the American warplanes.

The Israeli Air Force (IAF) took delivery of its first F-35 in 2016, with senior US defence official William LaPlante saying last December that the IAF had more than three dozen of the fighter jets.

The New Arab could not confirm whether the process pioneered at Sheffield had been used in making F-35 aircraft delivered to Israel.

The University of Sheffield was approached for comment but did not respond before publica

BAE Systems said last year that it produces the rear fuselage for all F-35s globally at its facilities in Samlesbury.

Israel finalised an agreement in 2010 to buy around 20 of the American warplanes.

The Israeli Air Force (IAF) took delivery of its first F-35 in 2016, with senior US defence official William LaPlante saying last December that the IAF had more than three dozen of the fighter jets.

The New Arab could not confirm whether the process pioneered at Sheffield had been used in making F-35 aircraft delivered to Israel.

The University of Sheffield was approached for comment but did not respond before publication.

Other encampments expected

One student involved in the Sheffield camp, who asked not to be named for fear of repercussions, said there were plans for encampments at “a very, very good number” of other universities in the coming days and weeks.

“We follow in the footsteps of Warwick, who began last week,” the student told The New Arab.

“Absolutely, we hope that this will be… a national movement. We’re already part of an international one.”

Stories posted on the Instagram account of Welsh university Swansea’s Palestine Society suggested an encampment was underway there, but The New Arab could not immediately verify this.

British news website The Independent reported that Goldsmiths, a London university, has been subject to occupations of buildings for weeks.

Organisers at Newcastle said on Wednesday they were proud to be joining Warwick, while other universities are expected to follow suit in the coming days. Students in Manchester said their action coincides with encampments in at least four other cities.

“The struggle of the Palestinian people to keep their dignity and livelihood is still going strong,” a spokesperson for the Manchester camp said in a press release.

“We stand in solidarity with all who are fighting for a Palestine free of genocide and occupation, from the River to the Sea,” the spokesperson added, referring to the boundaries of Palestine before Israel was created in 1948 alongside a campaign of ethnic cleansing.

(Source: The New Arab)