Posted on 11/18/24
| News Source: Times of Israel
Senator John Thune said Sunday that the US must pass legislation threatening the International Criminal Court with sanctions if it seeks arrest warrants against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu or other Israeli officials.
“If the ICC and its prosecutor do not reverse their outrageous and unlawful actions to pursue arrest warrants against Israeli officials, the Senate should immediately pass sanctions legislation, as the House has already done on a bipartisan basis,” Thune wrote on social media platform X.
Thune will become the majority leader of the Senate in early January when Republicans officially take over Congress. He was referring to a bill calling for sanctions on ICC officials that the House passed earlier this year.
ICC prosecutor Karim Khan has asked a pre-trial panel at the Hague to approve his request for arrest warrants against Netanyahu, former defense minister Yoav Gallant and three Hamas officials who have since been killed. Khan alleges that war crimes may have been committed during fighting in Gaza amid the ongoing war there with Hamas, sparked by the terror group’s October 7 onslaught.
Israel has steadfastly rejected the charges and portrayed the request as antisemitic, with some comparing it to a blood libel.