World Criminal Court wants to investigate all sides in Gaza

The International Criminal Court in The Hague describes the atrocities committed by Hamas on October 7 as crimes that "shock the conscience of humanity". However, the law must also apply on all front lines, says its chief prosecutor Khan. Meanwhile, UNICEF is making serious accusations against Israel.

The chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, Karim Khan, is calling for investigations into possible war crimes on all sides of the Gaza war. "We must show that the law prevails on all front lines and that it is capable of protecting everyone," he said in a statement issued by the World Criminal Court in The Hague. Khan had visited Israel and the Palestinian territories in recent days. It was his first official visit as Chief Prosecutor. He had been invited by relatives and friends of victims of the Hamas attacks on October 7. On Saturday, Khan met with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in Ramallah.

Although Israel is not a state party to the court, Khan offered the country his support in investigating the Hamas attacks of October 7. Khan spoke of "some of the worst international crimes that shock the conscience of humanity". He called on Hamas to release all hostages held immediately.

At the same time, Khan emphasized that Israel was also bound by international law when attacking the Gaza Strip. "As I have said before, Israel has trained lawyers to advise commanders and a robust system to ensure compliance with international humanitarian law." Well-founded accusations of alleged war crimes must be investigated independently and quickly.

The Prosecutor also expressed great concern about the increasing number of attacks by armed Israeli settlers on Palestinian citizens in the West Bank. The Criminal Court has been investigating Hamas and Israel for alleged war crimes in the Gaza Strip since 2021. Palestine has been a state party since 2015. In 2021, the court determined that it also has jurisdiction over the territories occupied since 1967, such as the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.

UNICEF: Attacks in Gaza "immoral" and "certainly illegal"

Meanwhile, the spokesperson for the UN Children's Fund UNICEF, James Elder, sharply criticized the Israeli attacks in the Gaza Strip during a visit. A "bloodbath" is taking place there which is "immoral" and which "will certainly be understood as illegal", Elder told the news channel Al-Jazeera during a visit to Chan Junis. Anyone who accepts this is guilty themselves. "Silence is complicity," said the visibly shaken Elder, who sometimes spoke with a trembling voice.

During his visit, he said, he saw children everywhere with severe burns, injuries from shrapnel, brain injuries and broken bones. Mothers were seen crying for their children, who were probably "hours away from death". Elder described the latest information about so-called "safe zones" for the population in Gaza as a "misrepresentation". The people were being "moved to tiny patches of land", where there was only sand, no water, no sanitary facilities and no protection from the weather. "These are not safe zones, these will be death zones," said Elder. "We have to call it what it is".

Israel wants to protect Gaza's civilian population

Israeli government advisor Mark Regev rejected accusations that his country was doing too little to protect the civilian population in Gaza in the fight against Hamas. "We are making maximum efforts, perhaps even unprecedented in similar circumstances," Regev told the BBC. Israel has designated specific neighborhoods that will be the target of attacks and warns civilians there in advance to leave, Regev said.

Regev attributed responsibility for the Gaza war and the resumption of fighting after a ceasefire lasting several days exclusively to Hamas. The organization is also hiding "its military terror machine" in residential areas, under hospitals and in mosques. The blame for civilian casualties therefore lies with the Islamist organization. Israel is doing everything it can to distinguish between combatants and civilians. Regev also questioned the number of civilian deaths in Gaza published by the Hamas health authority. This will become clear after the end of the war, he said. "If you will compare what Israel has done in Gaza and, say, Britain and other Western powers have done in the fight against IS in Syria and Iraq, you will see that through our actions we have managed to keep the number of civilian casualties very, very low," Regev said.

Israel's army had resumed fighting against the Islamist Hamas after the ceasefire expired. US Vice President Kamala Harris and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin called on Israel to better protect civilians.

According to Hamas, well over 15,000 people have already been killed in the Israeli attacks on Gaza, many of them civilians. The figures cannot currently be independently verified. The war was triggered by the worst massacre in Israel's history, carried out by Hamas terrorists and other extremist groups on October 7 in Israel near the border with the Gaza Strip. More than 1,200 people were killed on the Israeli side, most of them civilians.