ICC charges against Israel are unfounded – and the data confirms it

Contents of the article

Canada played a key role in the founding of the International Criminal Court (ICC), which on Thursday issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former defense minister Yoav Gallant. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said he would abide by the court’s decision. But Canada should not do this because the court has betrayed its mandate by making patently false allegations in a case over which it has no jurisdiction.

Contents of the article

When ICC prosecutor Karim Khan initially applied for the warrants in May, the main charge he brought against Netanyahu and Gallant was “starvation of civilians as a method of warfare.” However, while he was writing these words, a flood of help poured into Gaza.

Following the Oct. 7 massacre, Israeli authorities suspended aid deliveries to the Gaza Strip as they tried to regain composure in the face of the devastating surprise attack. But aid soon resumed, with United Nations data showing an increase in the number of trucks delivering goods for three straight months.

But in February 2024 there was a sudden drop. Despite mutual antagonism, UN agencies and Israeli authorities worked to improve the situation. While 2,874 trucks arrived in Gaza in February, the number rose to 4,993 in March and 5,671 in April.

Despite this surge, warnings have mounted that Gaza is on the brink of disaster. These concerns were prompted by a UN-backed hunger monitoring assessment known as the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC). For experts around the world, the IPC is the gold standard for hunger monitoring. In mid-March, the IPC warned that “famine is imminent” and would hit the Gaza Strip within two months.

Contents of the article

Contents of the article

The IPC uses a very specific definition of famine, which includes excess mortality of “at least two deaths per 10,000 people per day”, meaning that if it went on strike in the Gaza Strip, there would be hundreds of deaths each day only from hunger. not a violent conflict.

When the two-month forecast period came to an end, it became clear that there was no famine. The Hamas-run government media service in the Gaza Strip reported 41 deaths from malnutrition during the war. These were tragic losses, but they did not indicate Israeli malice.

In May, the IPC Famine Review Committee found that there was insufficient evidence to conclude that the situation in the Gaza Strip met the criteria for famine. At the end of June, it published a new quarterly assessment saying that “the amount of food and non-food items allowed into northern provinces has increased” and that “available data does not indicate that famine is currently occurring.”

Back in March, the IPC found that 30 percent of Gazans experienced the worst hardship, scoring a five on the IPC’s five-point scale. By mid-October it had dropped to six percent.

Contents of the article

One has to read IPC publications with a magnifying glass to find even a hint as to why its predictions were so wrong. Its October report mentioned in passing a “temporary surge in humanitarian assistance” without identifying who was responsible. Western media largely reported the IPC’s persistent warnings that the situation could worsen at any moment.

This brings us back to the International Criminal Court and its claim that Israel deliberately starved the population of Gaza. Aid groups often complain that Israeli authorities delay their shipments, return trucks at the last minute and impose onerous paperwork requirements. However, Israeli data shows that more than 57,000 trucks have been delivered to Gaza since the start of the war, delivering more than 1.1 million tons of goods.

The full contents of the ICC warrants are secret, but a summary of the ICC charges alleges that Netanyahu and Gallant’s actions “resulted in the disruption of the ability of humanitarian organizations to provide food and other essential goods to people in need in the Gaza Strip.” The facts suggest otherwise.

Contents of the article

While this is not the only charge against Netanyahu and Gallant, Israel’s alleged starvation campaign is at the center of the ICC charges. It is impossible to separate the weakness of this prosecution from the weakness of the entire case, which shows how politicized the court has become.

Israel, like the United States, is not a party to the Rome Statute and is therefore not subject to the court’s jurisdiction. To continue investigating Israeli leaders, the court had to stretch its mandate to the limit, declaring that it had jurisdiction because Israeli actions took place in the territory of the “State of Palestine.”

Some may see this as a legal innovation with a noble purpose, but there is a double standard at play. The ICC has not issued any warrants to Chinese leaders responsible for the cultural genocide of their country’s Uyghur Muslim minority.

There is no warrant against Bashar al-Assad, whose regime tortured and killed hundreds of thousands of Syrians. The court also did not prosecute Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, whose regime is supported by Assad, Hamas and a host of other violent terrorist organizations. Rather, the ICC decided to target the Jewish state.

Canada remains firmly committed to international law, but when the ICC, the instrument of that law, is so flawed, respecting its guarantees will be an even greater injustice.

National Post

David Adesnik is vice president for research at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies in Washington, DC.

Contents of the article