International Criminal Court (ICC) Prosecutor Karim Khan held meetings on Monday with the head of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas, and Islamist President of Turkey Recep Tayyip Erdogan, all in New York in anticipation of the U.N. General Assembly.
Reports from the meetings indicated that Abbas and Erdogan both enthusiastically pressured Khan to use his position at the ICC to persecute Israeli leaders in response to the country’s self-defense campaign in Gaza, the stronghold of the Sunni jihadist terrorist organization Hamas. Hamas invaded Israel on October 7, conducting door-to-door attacks on civilian neighborhoods and engaging in mass killings, gang rapes, abductions, infanticides, and other atrocities. The Hamas attack, which supporters refer to as the “al-Aqsa flood,” killed an estimated 1,200 people. The Israeli government has identified another 101 people who remain hostage in Gaza as of press time, nearing the anniversary of their abduction by Hamas.
Khan announced in May that he would seek arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for approving military operations against Hamas after the October 7 attack. His announcement also included that he would seek arrest warrants for several senior Hamas leaders in response to the crimes committed on October 7, but equated them to the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) response to them.
The prosecutor pressured the ICC to expedite his request for arrest warrants in early September, but the lengthy process has yet to yield any actionable warrants.
The Turkish state-run Anadolu news agency reported on Monday that Erdogan, a vocal supporter of the Hamas terrorist group, received an audience with Khan after having for months “fiercely advocated holding Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu administration accountable in international courts of law for its nearly year-long relentless offensive in the Gaza Strip.”
Turkish outlet TRT World added, that Erdogan used his time to accuse Israel of “genocide” for attempting to prevent more Hamas terror attacks, citing the Turkish presidency’s Communications Directorate.
“Israel must be held accountable for the crimes it has committed,” Erdogan reportedly said, “and … it is extremely important for the genocide case filed against Israel at the International Criminal Court to be concluded and for the perpetrators of genocide to receive the punishment they deserve.”
Erdogan, an avowed Islamist, has repeatedly defended Hamas as a legitimate political organization despite its lengthy history of human rights abuses and terrorism. Shortly after the attacks in October 2023, Erdogan declared, “Hamas is not a terrorist organization, it is a group of mujahideen defending their lands.” Before the month was over, the Turkish government organized a rally in support of Hamas, branded the “Great Palestine Rally,” which reportedly convened 1.5 million people against Israel.
“Israel, we will declare you to the world as a war criminal. We are preparing for introducing Israel to the world as a war criminal,” Erdogan said at the event, where he repeated, “Hamas is not a terrorist organization.”
In addition to meeting with Erdogan on Monday, Khan reportedly met with Abbas, the president of the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank and the leader of the so-called “moderate” political party Fatah. According to the Palestinian News & Information Agency (WAFA), Abbas similarly accused Israel of “genocide” for targeting Hamas, itself an explicitly genocidal organization, and claimed that Israeli “colonists” had also committed “violations” against his Authority.
“President Abbas demanded to expedite investigations into Israeli war crimes committed during the aggression on the Gaza Strip, as well as into colonial terrorism in the West Bank,” WAFA reported, “violations committed against detainees, and other crimes committed by the occupation in the occupied Palestinian Territory.”
The ICC is a global legal entity that prosecutes only three crimes: genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes. It was created by the Rome Statute and thus only has jurisdiction to act with state actors that are signatories to the legal document. Israel is not a Rome Statute signatory. The Palestinian Authority signed onto the Rome Statute in 2015 despite not being a state entity.
Khan became the ICC’s prosecutor in 2021, rising to the position after working on cases against Islamic State jihadists and working as an attorney for Saif al-Islam Qaddafi, once known as the most flamboyant son of Libyan dictator Muammar Qaddafi and later accused of war crimes before the ICC. The global court demanded his arrest in 2017 for war crimes, but he evaded detention and attempted to run in the 2021 Libyan presidential election, which was canceled indefinitely.
In writing his demand for arrest warrants for Netanyahu and Gallant, Khan accused Israeli leaders of “intentionally causing death, starvation, great suffering, and serious injury to body or health of the civilian population” in Gaza.
“We submit that the crimes against humanity charged were committed as part of a widespread and systematic attack against the Palestinian civilian population pursuant to State policy,” Khan claimed in May. “These crimes, in our assessment, continue to this day.”
Netanyahu and Gallant are facing three charges of “war crimes” and three of “crimes against humanity,” including “starvation,” “extermination,” and “persecution.”
Khan also requested arrest warrants for Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, the head of the Hamas al-Qassam Brigades, Mohammed Diab Ibrahim al-Masri, and late “political” leader Ismail Haniyeh. Haniyeh died in July after his lodgings in Tehran, where he traveled for the inauguration of President Masoud Pezeshkian, exploded.
Netanyahu, responding to Khan’s requests in May, called the arrest warrant call “outrageous” and accused the prosecutor of creating “a twisted and false moral equivalence between the leaders of Israel and the henchmen of Hamas.”
“This is like creating a moral equivalence after September 11th between President Bush and Osama Bin Laden, or during World War II between FDR and Hitler,” Netanyahu said.
Hamas leaders, in turn, criticized Khan for not requesting more arrest warrants for Israeli leaders.
“We appreciate the decision of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court to issue arrest warrants for two Zionist war criminals,” Hamas said in a statement at the time. “We see the issuance of these memorandums as a legal step in the right direction, despite the fact that they came late.”
Arrest warrant requests before the ICC often take months to process. In September, Khan issued a request for urgently expediting the warrants, which the ICC has not yet responded to with action. Last week, the Israeli Foreign Ministry announced that it had formally begun the process to challenge the warrant requests.
“There is no other democracy with an independent and well-regarded justice system such as Israel that has faced such discriminatory treatment by the prosecutor,” ministry spokesman Oren Marmorstein said on September 20. “Israel remains committed to the rule of law and to justice and will continue to defend its citizens from the ongoing attacks and atrocities of Hamas as well as Iran’s other terrorist arms, in accordance with international law.”
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