The complaint, filed in partnership with the Palestinian Center for Human Rights, focuses on al-Sharif, the 28-year-old Al-Jazeera terrorist who eliminated August 10 alongside six others in a targeted strike near Al-Shifa Hospital. The IDF confirmed the operation was deliberate and maintained the casualties were operatives utilizing press vests as cover.

The anti-Israeli organization levels war crimes accusations against Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir, Israeli Air Force Commander Maj. Gen. Tomer Bar, Southern Command Commander Maj. Gen. Yaniv Asor, and IDF Arabic Spokesperson Col. Avichay Adraee. Additionally, the foundation seeks to expand existing arrest warrants against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to encompass "crimes targeting journalists."

The Hind Rajab Foundation contends al-Sharif's elimination constituted part of a systematic campaign against Al-Jazeera personnel, asserting the organization "monitors" individuals on its target list to pursue them across multiple countries. The foundation has established precedent through previous similar complaints against IDF personnel in various nations.

The Palestinian Center for Human Rights supplemented the filing with documentation concerning additional journalists eliminated, including Hussam Shabat, Ismail al-Ghoul, and Ahmed al-Louh. The organizations assert 220 journalists have perished since the conflict's inception.

Foundation chairman Dyab Abou Jahjah said, "The assassination of Anas Al-Sharif was so blunt, so arrogant, and so drenched in contempt for human life, truth, the legal order, and humanity itself, that it cannot and will not be allowed to pass into silence."

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The claim was brought forward for the families of Avinatan Or, Eitan Mor, and Omri Miran through attorney Nitsana Darshan-Leitner of the Shurat HaDin – Israeli Law Center. The plaintiffs argue Khan has not been acting in good faith, seemingly to avoid addressing allegations of sexual attacks he carried out on an employee under him.

They assert that Khan waited eight months prior to seeking arrest warrants for three key Hamas figures – Mohammed Deif, Yahya Sinwar, and Ismail Haniyeh – while tying this to the same measures against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and ex-defense minister Yoav Gallant. Furthermore, he avoided issuing warrants for Palestinian Islamic Jihad heads and further Hamas officials presently responsible for holding the hostages.

The claim contends that via these deeds, Khan not only invented libels against the State of Israel and offered a misleading depiction to the plaintiff, but additionally delivered aid to the terror groups and supported them. The families say Khan has enabled the terrorists to persist in holding their dear ones by not pursuing action against them, particularly those residing in Qatari hotels and beyond the Strip who presume to engage in talks extorting the State of Israel.

Attorney Darshan-Leitner stated, "The International Criminal Court has become a branch of Hamas. Through its direct actions, it has given the terror murderers tremendous backing. Khan's goal is to prevent Israel from achieving the war's objectives – the destruction of Hamas and the release of the hostages – by portraying it as a criminal state."

She continued by noting that Khan has cynically exploited the distress of the hostage families, the starved and injured in the terror tunnels, all this in order to escape the threat of justice for alleged sexual offenses he committed himself.

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The Wall Street Journal reported that the proceedings target Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, focusing on their involvement in expanding Jewish settlements throughout the West Bank. Court personnel told The Wall Street Journal that the decision on pursuing these cases now rests with Khan's two deputy prosecutors, though their intended course of action remains uncertain.

Multiple officials and legal analysts expressed skepticism that the court would advance without a chief prosecutor present, considering the significant political risks such prosecutions could generate. The Wall Street Journal learned that proceeding would intensify the conflict between the ICC and Israel while expanding its focus beyond the Gaza war, which previously prompted the court to issue an arrest warrant for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu last year.

Additional warrants would likely further damage relations with the US, potentially triggering new sanctions from Washington, The Wall Street Journal reported. The court refused to provide commentary on specific proceedings but confirmed its authority to investigate crimes committed within Palestinian territories since 2014, when the Palestinian Authority accepted ICC jurisdiction. Representatives for Smotrich and Ben-Gvir failed to respond to comment requests from The Wall Street Journal.

ICC prosecutors have been evaluating whether Smotrich and Ben-Gvir committed war crimes through promoting West Bank Jewish settlement construction, the current and former officials informed The Wall Street Journal. The Geneva Conventions prohibit states from transferring their populations into territories that are defined in international law as belligerent occupation, although Israel has denied this is the case. Prosecutors are additionally investigating other Israeli officials regarding their roles in West Bank settlement expansion, the current and former officials told The Wall Street Journal.

Israel contends that the prohibition doesn't apply within the West Bank because the territory wasn't legally part of another state when Israeli military forces assumed control during the 1967 Six-Day War and therefore isn't "occupied" under international law definitions. The International Court of Justice, serving as the UN's highest court, regards Israeli settlements in the West Bank as illegal.

Smotrich and Ben-Gvir have advocated for Israel's expansion of control throughout the West Bank. Both men reside in West Bank settlements and have advocated for Israel to assume control over the entire territory, The Wall Street Journal noted.

The court is considering cases against these men during a politically challenging period for the institution, according to The Wall Street Journal. The court's arrest warrants issued last year for Netanyahu and his former defense minister, Yoav Gallant, regarding their conduct during the Gaza war, attracted condemnation from the US and sanctions against Khan imposed by the Trump administration. Khan also pursued warrants for three Hamas leaders who have since died in combat or through assassination.

Khan, serving as the court's chief prosecutor and public representative, began leave this month after The Wall Street Journal reported that one of his aides, a lawyer in her 30s, alleged Khan coerced her into sex on multiple occasions and invoked the court's investigations of Netanyahu, Gallant and Hamas to pressure her to disavow her accusations. Khan denies engaging in any sexual misconduct, The Wall Street Journal reported.

Khan already faces US sanctions, which the ICC states have hampered its operations, The Wall Street Journal learned. The Trump administration is considering whether to impose a second round of sanctions; ICC officials and legal experts worry new warrants against Israeli officials might provoke the US to target the court itself, an action that could cripple the institution by effectively severing it from the US financial system.

"In this political landscape I think both the prosecutor's office and the court has to proceed with some degree of caution," said Mark Ellis, executive director of the International Bar Association and an adviser to the ICC on sanctions, speaking to The Wall Street Journal. "The ICC is facing an existential threat."

Under the Rome Statute, the ICC's founding treaty, the transfer by an occupying power of its population, either directly or indirectly, into occupied territory constitutes a war crime, The Wall Street Journal reported. Israel provides substantial government support for settlers in the West Bank.

"It's a strong legal argument," Ellis told The Wall Street Journal. "But the political part of this, my God…"

New warrants would increase international pressure on Netanyahu, according to The Wall Street Journal. European governments and Canada have intensified their criticism recently of Israel's handling of the Gaza war, and imposed new sanctions on settlers for violence in the West Bank. President Trump this week called for the war to end "as quickly as possible."

The court charged Netanyahu and Gallant with war crimes and crimes against humanity, alleging they ordered Israeli forces to block humanitarian aid for Gaza as a method to defeat Hamas following the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks on southern Israel, The Wall Street Journal reported.

Netanyahu and Gallant didn't respond to requests for comment from The Wall Street Journal. Israel's defenders argue the government was permitting aid into Gaza following Oct. 7 but that deliveries were disrupted by the war and stolen by Hamas.

ICC judges have ordered that any new warrant applications against Israeli officials or Hamas personnel be filed under seal, the officials told The Wall Street Journal. A court spokesman didn't respond to a request for comment from The Wall Street Journal.

Khan publicly announced the applications for Netanyahu and Gallant, defying the advice of some senior prosecutors in the office to keep them secret, The Wall Street Journal learned.

As the court was preparing to seek warrants for Netanyahu and Gallant over the Gaza war, some ICC officials were arguing that the court should first bring a case over West Bank settlements, current and former officials told The Wall Street Journal.

Officials argued that the court would face less blowback over settlements cases than it would from going after Netanyahu over conduct of the Gaza war, since Western governments have defended Israel's right to strike Hamas following the Oct. 7 attacks, the officials told The Wall Street Journal. Western capitals including the US had already sanctioned Israeli settlers for violence against Palestinians in the West Bank.

Smotrich and Ben-Gvir lead ultranationalist political parties that are important components of Netanyahu's coalition government, The Wall Street Journal reported. Both men have called for Israel to retake Gaza and pushed the monthslong blockade of humanitarian aid into the territory that ended last week.

Smotrich championed a decision by the government this year to convert 13 West Bank neighborhoods that had once been outposts, which are illegal under Israeli law, into full-fledged settlements that are entitled to government funding, according to The Wall Street Journal.

"This is another important step on the way to de facto sovereignty in Judea and Samaria," Smotrich said, using the biblical name for the West Bank favored by the far right, as reported by The Wall Street Journal.

Israel isn't a member of the ICC, and the court's jurisdiction over possible crimes committed by Israeli officials in Judea and Samaria has been a matter of dispute, The Wall Street Journal reported. The court ruled in 2021 that Palestine was a state party to the Rome Statute, and that the court has jurisdiction over alleged crimes committed there even though Israel isn't an ICC member.

Israel maintains that its actions in the Palestinian territories don't fall under the jurisdiction of the ICCl.

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The International Criminal Court is launching a formal investigation into allegations of torture and extrajudicial killings committed by Venezuelan security forces under President Nicolas Maduro's rule, ICC Chief Prosecutor Karim Khan announced Wednesday following a three-day trip to Venezuelan capital Caracas.

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Standing alongside Maduro, Khan said he was aware of the political "fault lines" and "geopolitical divisions" in Venezuela. But he said his job was to uphold the principles of legality and the rule of law, not settle scores.

"I ask everybody now, as we move forward to this new stage, to give my office the space to do its work," he said. "I will take a dim view of any efforts to politicize the independent work of my office."

This is the first time a Latin American country faces scrutiny for possible crimes against humanity from the court. Nevertheless, it could be years before any criminal charges are presented as part of the ICC investigation.

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Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court Fatou Bensouda took to Twitter Wednesday to voice her concern over the recent escalation of violence between Israel and the Palestinians and the possibility that war crimes were being committed.

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"I note with great concern the escalation of violence in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, as well as in and around Gaza, and the possible commission of crimes under the Rome Statute," she tweeted.

#ICC Prosecutor #FatouBensouda on the recent escalation of violence in #Gaza, the #WestBank, including #EastJerusalem pic.twitter.com/jZlns3d92I

— Int'l Criminal Court (@IntlCrimCourt) May 12, 2021

Bensouda did not accuse either side of committing war crimes and called on both to seize the violence.

"My office will continue to monitor developments on the ground and will factor any matter that falls within its jurisdiction," she added.

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Israel will ask US President Joe Biden's administration for the White House's continued cooperation on efforts to thwart anti-Israel moves by the International Criminal Court.

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Israel Hayom has learned that Israel's first request on that front will be to coordinate the selection of the ICC's next chief prosecutor in the coming weeks.

Chief Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda, who has served in that role for the last nine years, is set to step down in the coming weeks. In recent years, she and the ICC have been the target of US sanctions under former US President Donald Trump, following her decision to investigate whether the US and Israel committed war crimes in the war in Afghanistan and 2014's Operation Protective Edge, respectively.

At the time, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Bensouda and Phakiso Mochochoko, head of The Hague court's Jurisdiction, Complementarity, and Cooperation Division, were sanctioned over the court's "illegitimate attempts to subject Americans to its jurisdiction."

In his executive order, Trump made clear the move was also aimed at protecting Israel.

Biden and his administration have yet to publicly state their position on the ICC. Under former US President Barack Obama's term, during which Biden served as vice president, the US refrained from joining the court due to the perceived threat it posed to American security forces.

Unlike her predecessors at the ICC who largely investigated war crimes in the developing world, Bensouda has said all crimes against humanity must be investigated and has looked into war crimes allegedly perpetrated by American and British soldiers.

In Israel's case, Bensouda instructed the Palestinians how to be accepted to the court, advanced complaints lodged by the Palestinians, and rejected all claims informally submitted by Israel.

For unknown reasons, the justices at The Hague have refrained from publishing their rulings on whether to authorize Bensouda to open an investigation into Israelis suspected of committing alleged war crimes. While Bensouda supports the move, many countries around the world have called on the ICC to refrain from doing so, which may be the cause for the delay. The court may also have been waiting for the new US administration to enter office, and now that Trump is no longer in the picture, will no longer hesitate to advance legal processes against Israel and the US.

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The ICC Pretrial Chamber is expected to decide sometime after March whether to recognize a "State of Palestine" and approve a full criminal probe of Israel and Hamas for alleged war crimes.

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On December 20, ICC Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda said she was ready to move forward on allegations against Israel relating to Operation Protective Edge in Gaza in 2014 and the settlement enterprise, as well as potentially the 2018-2019 Gaza border conflict.

Israel quickly filed two briefs arguing that since there is no sovereign Palestine to refer a case to the ICC, its intervention would simply politicize a diplomatic dispute that Israel and the Palestinians must resolve in negotiations.

Several countries and NGOs have filed legal briefs to support each side of the legal dispute, but B'Tselem is now the first Israeli NGO to support the Palestinian side, according to the report.

B'Tselem's counter-brief does acknowledge that the "status of a 'non-member observer state,' such as that of Palestine, does raise questions that the drafters of the Rome Statute likely never imagined and therefore did not address in the Statute itself."

However, the B'Tselem analysis then criticizes Israel's arguments point by point saying that, "the Prosecutor actually calls for a broad reading of the ICC's jurisdiction that sees past the rigid, traditional concept of a sovereign state. The argument is that an expansive interpretation would more accurately reflect the object and purpose of the Rome Statute, which include combating immunity for perpetrators of serious crimes."

B'Tselem, according to the report, suggests that the Rome Statute define a "state" in a broader fashion, whereas Israel maintains that the ICC's Rome Statute must define a "state" the same way the Vienna Convention does, requiring full sovereignty and control over territory, borders and other functions.

The NGO said that using the Vienna Convention definition "would actually constrict the powers of the ICC, an institution designed to combat the immunity of persons responsible for the gravest of crimes, which 'shock the conscience of humanity' and 'threaten the peace, security and well-being of the world.'"

B'Tselem, a long-time critic of Israeli policy regarding the Palestinians, also cited provisions to support the case for "Palestine" which invite ICC intervention under circumstances where a country is unable or unwilling to carry out its responsibility as a state to prosecute war crimes, while Israel notes several provisions of the Rome Statute which appear to indicate only a fully sovereign state could fulfill the Statute.

The Israeli government also cites the principle of complimentarity – the notion that the ICC cannot intervene if a nation probes its own alleged war crimes – as proof that the cardinal principle of the ICC is respecting national sovereignty.

B'Tselem responded that "the principle of complementarity is intended not to preserve sovereignty but to serve justice, adding that 'justice may not suffer the fate of the neglected orphan in the province of national sovereignty.'"

The NGO, the Jerusalem Post reported, said that Israel's brief "overlooked the international community's positions on Israel's policy in the Occupied Territories for more than 50 years, and absurdly misrepresented reality."

In other words, B'Tselem views anti-Israel resolutions by the UN Human Rights Council or UN General Assembly as binding moral and legal positions, while Israel dismisses them as political.

Israel has further argued that the ICC cannot intervene because taking sides in a two-party conflict, including prosecuting the construction of settlements, does not match the crimes of genocide as in the Holocaust against the Jews for which the ICC was created.

B'Tselem assailed that argument, saying: "With shameless cynicism, Israel is trying to use these very horrors to justify continued oppression, land grab and killings at its own hands, dismissing global efforts over the last 75 years to…help form a world based on justice, equality and dignity for all."

B'Tselem Executive Director Hagai El-Ad said, "Israel's attempt to clutch at formalistic straws to evade the ICC's jurisdiction is shameful…Palestine is not a 'sovereign state' precisely because it is under Israeli occupation, whose crimes the ICC has the jurisdiction – and responsibility – to investigate."

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The IBA's move is designed to give Israel a voice in the court without having the country officially join.

Israel has refused to sign the Rome Statute and is hence not part of the ICC. The Jewish state also says the court has no jurisdiction on matters pertaining to Israeli territory because Israel is not a party to the convention, but the court has nevertheless begun proceedings that could culminate with a full-fledged investigation against Israel over its actions in the Gaza Strip and in various Palestinian cities.

Israeli leaders have slammed the court for taking that position.

The IBA's governing body approved Monday a motion that could pave the way for the organization to represent Israel in cases concerning the state. "In order to avoid having the Palestinian Authority's position go unchallenged, we have discussed the possibility of becoming an amicus curiae in the court and we have assembled a task force to facilitate that," the motion reads.

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Bennett, who spoke at the commencement of cadets at the Israeli Air Force's Flight Academy, said that the ICC chief prosecutor's decision to ask the court in The Hague for an opinion on whether its scope of jurisdiction on the matter would not affect Israel's determination to confront terrorists wherever they may be.

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"The court is a breeding ground for modern anti-Semitism; We will fight terrorism as if there is no Hague and we will fight The Hague as if there is no terrorism," he continued.

Turning to the newly minted airmen and airwomen, he said: "I know that when you go on a sortie, serving as Israel's long arm that strikes the evildoers in precision strikes, you have to handle enormous stress. This pressure is now worse as a result of the ICC's decision, but you should not be discouraged." He then went on to promise that Israeli decision makers will stand by the Israel Defense Forces troops if they ever get prosecuted, borrowing a term from Israel's successful missile defense disposition.

"I want to make it clear, to all the IDF commanders and fighters past and present – Israel will provide a legal Iron Dome to its service members, you protect us and we will protect you," he said. "We won't let anti-Semitism fly in the cockpit."

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The announcement opens the possibility of charges being filed against Israelis or Palestinians.

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The Palestinians welcomed the decision but Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called it "a dark day for truth and justice," adding that the ICC has no jurisdiction to investigate in the areas in question.

"The ICC only has jurisdiction over petitions submitted by sovereign states. But there has never been a Palestinian state," he said in a statement.

The ICC's chief prosecutor, Fatou Bensouda, said a preliminary examination into alleged war crimes, opened in 2015, had provided enough information to meet all criteria for opening an investigation.

"I am satisfied that ... war crimes have been or are being committed in the West Bank, including east Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip," Bensouda said in a statement.

She said there was a "reasonable basis" to believe Israeli forces, Hamas, and other Palestinian terrorist groups committed war crimes during Operation Protective Edge in Gaza in 2014. She also said Israeli authorities may have committed war crimes related to the "transfer of Israeli civilians into the West Bank," a reference to Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria.

Bensouda also said she had filed a request with judges for a jurisdictional ruling because of the contested legal status of those territories.

"Specifically, I have sought confirmation that the 'territory' over which the court may exercise its jurisdiction, and which I may subject to investigation, comprises the West Bank, including east Jerusalem, and Gaza," Bensouda said.

Determining where she can investigate should be resolved before she starts an investigation "and not settled only later by judges after my investigations are completed," she said.

It is not clear when a decision would be made but Bensouda said she had asked the court to "rule expeditiously" and to allow potential victims to participate in proceedings.

"Palestine welcomes this step as a long-overdue step to move the process forward towards an investigation, after nearly five long and difficult years of preliminary examination," the Palestinian Authority, based in Ramallah, said in a statement.

PA Foreign Minister Riad Malki said the ICC decision was "a dark day in the history of Israel."

Netanyahu added that Bensouda's decision "has turned the International Criminal Court into a political tool to delegitimize the State of Israel. The prosecutor has completely ignored the legal arguments we presented to her."

In a legal opinion released Friday, Attorney General Avichai Mendelblit said the Palestinians do not meet the criteria of statehood because they do not have sovereignty over defined borders. Citing past peace agreements, Israel said the two sides had agreed to resolve their territorial dispute in negotiations.

"By approaching the ICC, the Palestinians are seeking to breach the framework agreed to by the parties and to push the Court to determine political issues that should be resolved by negotiations, and not by criminal proceedings," the legal opinion said.

The Palestinians insisted they are a fully-fledged member of the court and that the court has jurisdiction.

Human Rights Watch, which has documented alleged violations by all sides in the conflict, said the court should have moved more quickly to a full investigation.

"Bensouda's decision to seek guidance from the court's judges nearly five years into her preliminary inquiry means that perpetrators of serious crimes will not face justice at the ICC anytime soon," Kenneth Roth, the group's executive director, said in a statement.

"Palestinian and Israeli victims have faced a wall of impunity for serious violations committed against them for long enough. The prosecutor should have proceeded directly with a formal probe as was within her power to do."

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said in a statement that the United States did not believe Palestinians qualified as a sovereign state and added: "We firmly oppose this and any other action that seeks to target Israel unfairly."

The ICC has the authority to hear cases of war crimes, genocide, and crimes against humanity committed within the territory of the 123 countries that have signed up to it. Israel has not joined the court but the Palestinian Authority has done so.

A Hamas spokesperson in Gaza welcomed Bensouda's decision "to open an investigation into the war crimes committed by the occupation against the Palestinian people."

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