00:00The prosecutor of the International Criminal Court has today applied for arrest warrants against
00:05Israel's prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, his defence minister, Yoav Galant, and three
00:11top Hamas leaders, all on suspicion of war crimes and crimes against humanity.
00:16Amid more than seven months of war in Gaza, the prosecutor said the warrants for Netanyahu and
00:22Galant follow alleged crimes of starvation and willful killing. The charges against Hamas leaders
00:30include, he said, extermination and hostage taking. Well, let's start by listening to a
00:36little from the prosecutor himself, Karim Khan. On the basis of evidence collected
00:43and examined and analysed by my office, I have reasonable grounds to believe
00:49that three senior leaders of Hamas, Yahya Sinwa, Mohammed Da'if and Ismail Haniyeh,
00:59bear criminal responsibility for the following international crimes committed on the territory
01:05of Israel and the state of Palestine from at least the 7th of October 2023. I can also confirm
01:15today that I have reasonable grounds to believe, on the basis of evidence collected
01:21and examined by my office, that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Minister of
01:29Defence Yoav Galant bear criminal responsibility for the following international crimes committed
01:37on the territory of the state of Palestine from at least the 8th of October 2023.
01:45Well, let's get some analysis then. I'm very pleased to welcome to the programme
01:48Reid Brodie. He's a veteran war crimes prosecutor himself. He joins us
01:53live on the programme from New York. Quite a moment, this, isn't it? Just give us your
01:59initial reaction. Well, this is really a watershed event, not just in the Middle East, but for the
02:07history of international justice. The International Criminal Court, in over 20
02:14years of existence, has never indicted a Western official. In fact, no international tribunal since
02:23Nuremberg has done so. Up until now, the instruments of international justice have been
02:31almost exclusively used to address crimes by defeated adversaries, as in Nuremberg,
02:38powerless outcasts and African rebels, or opponents of the West, like Vladimir Putin
02:45and Slobodan Milosevic. So for the prosecutor of the ICC to request indictments of the top
02:56Israeli officials, this is earth shattering, really. Many people thought this would never
03:03happen. The ICC prosecutor's office has had an examination into the situation in Palestine,
03:14even well before the current conflicts regarding illegal settlements, regarding other
03:22crimes or alleged crimes of the past. It was always thought that this was a red line. This
03:28was a political red line for Israel, for the United States, that no prosecutor would have the
03:36courage to do this. Now we see, after really escalating rhetoric by the prosecutor over the
03:45last many months, who said, you guys better watch out. This is going to happen. You keep doing this,
03:51don't complain. And now we finally see that Israeli leaders, as well as Hamas leaders,
03:57are facing a legal reckoning for their actions. Right. You say it took courage by the prosecutor
04:05to get this far. I just want to bring you a little reaction we're getting today from Israel's
04:10president, Isaac Herzog. He says the announcements by the prosecutor are beyond outrageous. He then
04:17goes on to say it shows the extent to which the international judicial system is, he says,
04:25in danger of collapsing. What do you make of that? Well, I think it's the opposite, actually. I think
04:32the international system has been in danger of collapsing precisely because of double standards,
04:38where everyone cheered when the ICC issued warrants against Vladimir Putin.
04:54We have been watching, all of us, the onslaught in Gaza for the last six months.
05:03And people have been saying, where is the law? Where is the law in all of this? We have another
05:10court in The Hague, the International Court of Justice, which is considering and has said
05:16that basically Israel even has a case to answer for genocide. One looking on their TVs, people
05:28around the world watching what is going on would expect that the international judicial system
05:34would respond with this kind of action against Hamas for the cruel taking of hostages for the
05:41attacks of October 7th against Israeli civilians, but also for Israel, for the collective punishment
05:48of the people of Gaza. I think it's quite the opposite. This shows, for the first time,
05:53for many of us skeptics who have always complained about the double standards of the
05:59international justice system, that it can actually work. Now, of course, it's up to the three judges
06:08to decide whether or not, in both cases, in the case of Hamas and the case of Israeli leaders,
06:14whether the evidence presented by the prosecutor supports these warrants.
06:20But I think this is justice working. And if the ICC approves these warrants, it makes Netanyahu
06:28a wanted man in the same category as Vladimir Putin or Omar al-Bashir of Sudan. This is the
06:34law as it should be working. And just spell it out for us then, as you say, we need to wait for
06:41the judges here who haven't yet granted these arrest warrants. But if they do,
06:46for Galan, for Netanyahu, and indeed for figures like Ismail Haniyeh, the Hamas leader who's in
06:53Doha, it means what? Effectively, they can't travel very far at all?
06:58Well, that's right. I mean, it makes their world all of a sudden much smaller. In the case of
07:05Vladimir Putin, we understand he's not going to be leaving Russia or go to friendly countries like he
07:11just is in China. And for Hamas leaders, they will, of course, Hamas leaders, some Hamas leaders
07:19may in fact be captured by Israel. And then, of course, Israel will have to worry if they
07:24determine whether they actually want to cooperate with the court. But for people like Benjamin
07:30Netanyahu and Yoav Galant, remember also that these crimes, I mean, I don't expect that we
07:36will see them in the handcuffs anytime soon. But these crimes have no statute of limitations.
07:43As long as these cases are pending, they will not be able to travel to any of the 124 countries,
07:50which includes the entire European continent, without worrying about an arrest warrant. I mean,
07:57their world has gotten much, much smaller, or it will get if these warrants are approved.
08:04Reid Brodie, so many more questions I'd like to ask you. Unfortunately,
08:07we're out of time, though. Thank you very much indeed for your analysis here on France 24.
08:12You're quite welcome.
