President Joe Biden on Monday insisted Israel was not committing genocide in Gaza after the International Criminal Court put out arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant.
And he also reassured the crowd his administration was doing everything it can to free the hostages, adding that one of them was present at his event – and then quickly correcting himself that it was not the case.
‘My administration is working around the clock to free the remaining hostages just as we have freed some hostages already. Here with us today is Hersh Goldberg-Polin. He’s not here. He’s still being held hostage,’ Biden at a Jewish American Heritage Month celebration in the White House Rose Garden.
Goldberg-Poli is a 23-year-old Israeli American who has been held hostage since Hamas attacked Israel on October 7th.
During his remarks, Biden doubled down on his support for Israel.
‘What is happening is not genocide. We reject that,’ Biden told the crowd.
Among those cheering him on were son Hunter and his wife Melissa Cohen, who is Jewish.
President Joe Biden told a Jewish American Heritage Month event that his administration was doing everything it can to free the hostages, adding that hostage Hersh Goldberg-Polin was present at his event – and then quickly correcting himself that it was not the case
In his remarks, Biden talked about his ‘iron clad’ committment to the Jewish state and his people. And he praised the Jewish people’s contributions to the arts, science and culture.
His remarks came on the same day British prosecutor Karim Khan said he is seeking warrants for Netanyahu and Gallant, as well as three Hamas leaders. The ICC charges the leaders with charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity in relation to the Oct. 7 attack and the war in Gaza.
‘Whatever these warrants may imply, there is no similarities between Israel and Hamas,’ he said.
His speech was an echo on his statement earlier Monday where he called the arrest warrants ‘outrageous.’
‘The ICC prosecutor’s application for arrest warrants against Israeli leaders is outrageous. And let me be clear: whatever this prosecutor might imply, there is no equivalence — none — between Israel and Hamas. We will always stand with Israel against threats to its security,’ the president said in a statement.
The State Department was out with a longer statement that denounced the court for pairing Israel with Hamas.
‘We reject the Prosecutor’s equivalence of Israel with Hamas. It is shameful. Hamas is a brutal terrorist organization that carried out the worst massacre of Jews since the Holocaust and is still holding dozens of innocent people hostage, including Americans,’ Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a statement.
And White House spokesman John Kirby noted that ‘we don’t believe the ICC has any jurisdiction in the matter.’
President Joe Biden greets gusts at the Jewish American Heritage Month celebration
House Speaker Mike Johnson blasted the ICC and threatened to hold sanctions against the court.
‘The ICC has no authority over Israel or the United States, and today’s baseless and illegitimate decision should face global condemnation,’ he said.
‘Congress is reviewing all options, including sanctions, to punish the ICC and ensure its leadership faces consequences if they proceed. If the ICC is allowed to threaten Israeli leaders, ours could be next,’ he added.
Republican Rep. Elise Stefanik was in Israel when the decision came down.
‘As Bibi leads @Israel through one of the darkest moments in its history, we must stand unequivocally with Israel against Iran and their proxies who seek to destroy the only democracy in the Middle East,’ she wrote on X.
Meanwhile, Israel lashed out at the ICC over the warrants for its two officials.
An Israeli official slammed the ICC’s move as a ‘baseless blood libel’ against the country, while s President Isaac Herzog called the move ‘outragious,’ saying it ‘cannot be accepted by anyone’.
‘[The] ICC prosecutor’s baseless blood libel against Israel has crossed a red line in his lawfare efforts against the lone Jewish state and the only democracy in the Middle East,’ the official said, according to the Financial Times.
‘The blood libel will not deter Israel from defending itself and accomplishing all its just war objectives’ in Gaza, the official added
Khan said warrants were being sought for Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, Mohammed Diab Ibrahim al-Masri (aka Mohammed Deif), the leader of the Al Qassem Brigades – Hamas’ military wing, and Ismail Haniyeh, Hamas’ political leader.
Khan told CNN that the charges against the trio include ‘extermination, murder, taking of hostages, rape and sexual assault in detention.’
‘The world was shocked on the 7th of October when people were ripped from their bedrooms, from their homes, from the different kibbutzim in Israel,’ Khan told CNN host Christiane Amanpour, adding that ‘people have suffered enormously.’
The chief prosecutor for the International Criminal Court has said today he is seeking arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (pictured) and Defence Minister Yoav Gallant – as well as three Hamas leaders
Biden and Netanyahu met in Israel in October
Rep. Elise Stefanik was in Israel when the ICC decision was announced
In a separate statement, he said that he saw for himself ‘the devastating scenes of these attacks and the profound impact of the unconscionable crimes charged in the applications filed today.
‘Speaking with survivors, I heard how the love within a family, the deepest bonds between a parent and a child, were contorted to inflict unfathomable pain through calculated cruelty and extreme callousness. These acts demand accountability.’
He also said the ICC was applying for warrants for Netanyahu and Gallant for their part in the assault on the Gaza strip that continues today.
‘We have applied for warrants – of course the judges must determine whether or not to issue them, but we have applied today,’ he told Amanpour.
He said the charges against Netanyahu and Gallant include ‘crimes of causing extermination, causing starvation as a method of war including the denial of humanitarian relief supplies, deliberately targeting civilians in conflict.’
Speaking of Israel’s actions, Khan said in a statement that ‘the effects of the use of starvation as a method of warfare, together with other attacks and collective punishment against the civilian population of Gaza are acute, visible and widely known.
‘They include malnutrition, dehydration, profound suffering and an increasing number of deaths among the Palestinian population, including babies, other children, and women,’ he added.
Khan said arrest warrants were being sought for three Hamas leaders, including Yahya Sinwar (pictured, file photo)
Warrants are also being sought by the ICC for Mohammed Diab Ibrahim al-Masri (aka Mohammed Deif, pictured left), the leader of the Al Qassem Brigades – Hamas’ military wing, and Ismail Haniyeh, Hamas’ political leader who is based in Qatar
An arrest warrant is also being sought for Israel’s Defence Minister Yoav Gallant (pictured)
Several senior Israeli officials slammed the ICC’s move to seek warrants against Netanyahu and his defence chief.
‘Any attempt to draw parallels between these atrocious terrorists and a democratically elected government of Israel – working to fulfil its duty to defend and protect its citizens entirely in adherence to the principles of international law is outrageous and cannot be accepted by anyone,’ President Herzog said.
Benny Gantz, an Israeli war cabinet minister, called the ICC’s move a ‘distortion’.
‘Drawing parallels between the leaders of a democratic country determined to defend itself from despicable terror to leaders of a blood-thirsty terror organisation (Hamas) is a deep distortion of justice and blatant moral bankruptcy,’ he said.
Israeli foreign minister Israel Katz said he would ‘speak with foreign ministers of leading countries around the world to urge them to oppose the prosecutor’s decision and declare that even if warrants are issued, they do not intend to enforce them against Israeli leaders.’
Bezalel Smotrich, a far-right politician and finance minister, said the decision was a ‘show hypocrisy and Jew-hatred’.
‘Arrest warrants against them are arrest warrants against us all,’ he said.
Foreign leaders also rebuked the ICC for seeking the warrants.
A spokesperson for British prime minister Rishi Sunak said: ‘This action is not helpful in relation to reaching a pause in the fighting, getting hostages out or getting humanitarian aid in.’
‘We fully respect the independence of the ICC,’ Austrian chancellor Karl Nehammer said. ‘The fact however that the leader of the terrorist organisation Hamas whose declared goal is the extinction of the State of Israel is being mentioned at the same time as the democratically elected representatives of that very State is non-comprehensible.’
Hamas also responded to the news.
‘Hamas strongly denounces the attempts of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court to equate the victim with the executioner by issuing arrest warrants against a number of Palestinian resistance leaders,’ the terror group said.
‘Hamas… demands the cancellation of all arrest warrants issued against leaders of the Palestinian resistance, for violating UN conventions and resolutions.’
On the other hand, war crimes prosecutor Reed Brody praised the ICC.
“Many thought this request would never come. … Israeli leaders are finally facing a legal reckoning for their actions,’ he said.
‘Top Hamas officials likewise face justice for the cruel and inhuman taking of hostages and other crimes against humanity.
‘ICC warrants if approved would make Netanyahu a wanted man, in the same category as (Russian President Vladimir) Putin and Omar al-Bashir of Sudan.’
In an interview on Monday, Karim Khan (pictured in April) said the warrants are for war crimes and crimes against humanity over the terror group’s deadly October 7 attack and Israel’s subsequent war in the Gaza Strip
The United Nations and other aid agencies have repeatedly accused Israel of hindering aid deliveries throughout the war. Israel denies this, saying there are no restrictions on aid entering Gaza and accusing the UN of failing to distribute aid.
The UN says aid workers have repeatedly come under Israeli fire, and also says ongoing fighting and a security vacuum have impeded deliveries.
Israel launched its war in response to an October 7 cross-border attack by Hamas that killed some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and took 250 others hostage.
The Israeli offensive has killed around 35,000 Palestinians, at least half of them women and children, according to the latest estimates by Gaza health officials.
The Israeli offensive has also triggered a humanitarian crisis in Gaza, displacing roughly 80 percent of the population and leaving hundreds of thousands of people on the brink of starvation, according to UN officials.
The prosecutor must request the warrants from a pre-trial panel of three judges, who take on average two months to consider the evidence and determine if the proceedings can move forward.
Israel is not a member of the court, and even if the arrest warrants are issued, Netanyahu and Gallant do not face any immediate risk of prosecution.
But Khan’s announcement deepens Israel’s isolation as it presses ahead with its war, and the threat of arrest could make it difficult for the Israeli leaders to travel abroad.
If the leaders go to one of the 124 nations that recognize the court, which include most European countries but not the United States, they could be arrested.
Both Sinwar and Deif are believed to be hiding in Gaza as Israel tries to hunt them down. But Haniyeh, the supreme leader of the Islamic militant group, is based in Qatar and frequently travels across the region.
The ICC is the world’s only permanent international court with the power to prosecute individuals accused of war crimes, genocide and crimes against humanity.
The court cannot try people in abstenia. And it has no police force, but instead relies on its members to make arrests. An arrested suspect is typically transferred to The Hague to appear before the court.
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