‘War Crimes are War Crimes’

War criminals: Both Putin (left) and Netanyahu now have arrest orders over their heads but to Biden, only one committed a war crime. —Agencies

HUMAN rights defenders around the world have accused United States’ President Joe Biden of double standards and worse after he condemned a decision by the International Criminal Court’s top prosecutor to pursue arrest warrants for Israeli and Hamas leaders for alleged crimes committed during the Oct 7 attacks and the subsequent obliteration of Gaza.

Karim Khan, the ICC’s chief prosecutor, said on May 20 that the court has formally applied for arrest warrants targeting two Israeli and three Palestinian officials. Khan is seeking to arrest Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defence Minister Yoav Gallant for alleged “crimes of causing extermination, causing starvation as a method of war, including the denial of humanitarian relief supplies, [and] deliberately targeting civilians in conflict.”