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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Khan, the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, faces serious allegations of sexual assault from a female staff member – claims that emerged just weeks before he sought unprecedented arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and then-Defense Minister Yoav Gallant over the Gaza war. The woman alleges Khan sexually assaulted her multiple times across several countries, while Khan reportedly warned her that pursuing the allegations would damage "the justice of the victims" and told her to "think about the Palestinian arrest warrants," according to testimony reviewed by The Wall Street Journal. The timing has raised questions about whether Khan's decision to seek the warrants was influenced by the allegations against him, creating a crisis for the court as it pursues its most politically controversial case.

In a luxury hotel suite overlooking the United Nations headquarters in New York, a confrontation unfolded that would eventually threaten the stability of the International Criminal Court and inject a layer of personal scandal into one of the most politically charged investigations in its history, The Wall Street Journal reported. A female assistant in her 30s alleges that Karim Khan, the ICC's chief prosecutor, sexually assaulted her that December 2023 evening – one incident in what she describes as a pattern of abuse spanning multiple continents and several months.

The Malaysian lawyer, who often traveled with Khan, had asked to meet him at the Millennium Hilton hotel to urge him to ease his increasingly harsh treatment of staff, according to testimony reviewed by The Wall Street Journal. Instead, she claims Khan began touching her sexually, pulled her to the bed despite her attempts to leave, removed her pants and forced sexual intercourse – actions she alleges were part of an established pattern. The Wall Street Journal noted that the woman testified she felt "trapped" during these encounters, which allegedly occurred in locations including New York, Colombia, Congo, Chad, Paris and at Khan's residence in The Hague.

Just weeks after these allegations surfaced internally, Khan made the most dramatic move in the court's 23-year history – applying for arrest warrants against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and then-Defense Minister Yoav Gallant. The timing has fueled questions about whether Khan was attempting to protect himself through this politically consequential decision, The Wall Street Journal reported. Through his lawyers, Khan has categorically denied any sexual misconduct and rejected any connection between the allegations and his decision on the Israeli warrants.

The Palestinian investigation was already fraught with geopolitical tension, pitting influential Western nations against a bloc of developing countries pushing for action against Israel. According to The Wall Street Journal, the warrant applications shored up support for Khan among anti-Israel ICC member nations that would likely back him if the allegations became public. The woman herself initially declined to cooperate with investigators, telling colleagues she didn't want to disrupt the Palestinian case by bringing a complaint against Khan.

"He always holds on to me and leads me to the bed," she said in testimony reviewed by The Wall Street Journal. "It's the feeling of being trapped." The woman remained in her position, The Wall Street Journal reported, because she didn't want to abandon an important role in human rights law and needed to pay her dying mother's medical bills. She also came to fear retaliation from Khan, according to current and former ICC officials interviewed by The Wall Street Journal.

The United Nations Office of Internal Oversight Services is now investigating both the sexual assault allegations and claims that Khan attempted to intimidate the accuser and others who reported his conduct, The Wall Street Journal noted. Any action to remove Khan would require a majority vote of the court's 125 member nations, but the investigation's findings could fundamentally alter the trajectory of the court at a moment when its legitimacy is already being questioned by powerful non-member states including the United States, Russia, China and Israel.

According to The Wall Street Journal, Khan has suggested the allegations are part of a broader campaign to undermine the ICC. Court officials reportedly worried that Israeli intelligence was operating in The Hague as the Palestinian investigation intensified, and Russian intelligence agencies were also a concern due to the ICC's investigation of alleged war crimes in Ukraine. Security equipment was installed in the homes of senior prosecutors working on these cases in summer 2024, The Wall Street Journal reported.

The political drama surrounding the allegations began to unfold on April 29, 2024, when Khan's accuser broke down to Thomas Lynch, an American lawyer and close adviser at the ICC, and another colleague, telling them Khan had been sexually abusing her for months, according to ICC officials cited by The Wall Street Journal. Lynch and two other aides confronted Khan at his home on May 2, informing him they were reporting the allegations to the court's human resources office.

The Wall Street Journal reported that Khan responded that he would have to resign, before adding: "But then people will think I'm running away from Palestine." The following day, Khan's office released a statement insisting that "all attempts to impede, intimidate, or improperly influence its officials cease immediately" – without specifically mentioning the allegations, The Wall Street Journal noted.

During this same period, Khan was preparing for a crucial trip to Israel and Gaza that he had been seeking for months. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan had pressed Israeli officials to grant Khan access, seeing the visit as an opportunity to persuade him against seeking arrest warrants, according to The Wall Street Journal. Khan told Blinken on May 3 that his trip would provide important context before making any decision on the warrants.

Yet on May 19, Khan suddenly canceled his long-planned visit – then announced the warrant applications the very next day, The Wall Street Journal reported. This move defied the advice of senior prosecutors who wanted to avoid placing public pressure on the judges who would ultimately decide whether to approve the warrants.

The Wall Street Journal detailed how Khan allegedly tried to convince his accuser to disavow the allegations in the months that followed. "The casualties will unfortunately be three: You and your family, me and my family and the justice of the victims," Khan reportedly told the woman, according to a record of a call that is now part of the UN investigation. "Think about the Palestinian arrest warrants," she said he told her on another occasion, according to her testimony cited by The Wall Street Journal.

The woman alleges Khan's unwanted advances began during a work trip to London in March 2023, where he tried to hold her hand, The Wall Street Journal reported. She claims he first had nonconsensual sexual intercourse with her during a trip to Kinshasa in early June 2023. Back in The Hague, Khan would allegedly begin sexually touching her when she delivered documents to his home, according to her testimony.

As time passed, the emotional toll mounted. The woman told Khan she was having suicidal thoughts, which prompted him to leave her alone for several weeks before the alleged assaults resumed, The Wall Street Journal reported. Most recently, during an April 2024 trip to Venezuela and Colombia, Khan knocked on her hotel room door at 3 a.m. in Caracas. The next day in Bogotá, after she declined his invitation to his room claiming illness, Khan allegedly came to her room instead, lay down beside her and sexually assaulted her.

The ICC warrants against Netanyahu and Gallant, which charge them with war crimes and crimes against humanity related to Israel's conduct in Gaza, have sparked international backlash. President Joe Biden expressed outrage, and President Donald Trump sanctioned Khan through an executive order shortly after taking office, The Wall Street Journal noted. Even traditional court supporters like France and Germany indicated they might not comply with an ICC request to arrest Netanyahu.

According to The Wall Street Journal, the evidence against Netanyahu and Gallant centers on statements they made in the days after the October 7 Hamas attack. Gallant announced Israel would impose a "complete siege" on Gaza, adding: "There will be no electricity, no food, no fuel." Netanyahu, after meeting with Biden on October 18, stated: "We will not allow humanitarian assistance in the form of food aid and medicines from our territory to the Gaza Strip." ICC prosecutors contend these statements demonstrate that blocking aid to Gaza was a deliberate tactic rather than a side effect of military operations.

The stakes for both Khan and the court itself remain extraordinarily high. As The Wall Street Journal reported, the woman accusing Khan told officials on a February conference call: "I held on for as long as I could because I didn't want to f— up the Palestinian arrest warrants." Yet Khan continues his work, meeting with officials and diplomats and traveling internationally while the investigation proceeds.

"People have told me to stand up against this man," the woman said during that February call, according to The Wall Street Journal, "yet everyone, including elected officials, seems to be very scared of him and says there is nothing we can do [about making him step aside] because he refuses."

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The sanctions on Khan include asset freezes in the US, a ban on American citizens engaging in commercial dealings with him, and a travel ban to the United States, as is customary in cases where individuals are added to the US Treasury Department's sanctions list. These measures could also affect his immediate family. The executive order also prohibits donations or assistance in any way to help Khan circumvent the sanctions, as anyone involved would face sanctions themselves.

It is important to note that the sanctions were imposed due to the court's decision to issue arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant.

Khan, a British citizen, was included in the blacklist that Trump signed last week, and Reuters confirmed that sanctions have been imposed on him. Currently, Khan is the only individual at the ICC who has been sanctioned, but the presidential order is broader in scope, covering anyone involved in the case against Israel.

Last week, President Donald Trump signed an executive order allowing sanctions against ICC members and those assisting investigations against the US and its allies. During his previous term, Trump had imposed sanctions on the court, but these were reversed when the Democrats took control of the government.

The International Criminal Court condemned the American decision, stating, "We will continue to deliver justice and hope to millions of innocent victims around the world."

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Some of the external advisers on whom the prosecutor at the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague based his decision to seek arrest warrants for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant had already expressed anti-Israel views years before the Gaza war. This was revealed by an examination conducted by the international law expert, Prof. Eugene Kontorovich, head of the International Law Department at the Kohelet Policy Forum.

Chief Prosecutor Karim Khan wrote that he was "grateful for the advice of a panel of experts in international law," which he described as an "impartial group." This is an exceptional procedure in which the court also relies on external advisers before deciding on the issue. The purpose of the consultation is to enhance credibility regarding the decision.

In an op-ed he published in the Wall Street Journal, Kontorovich exposed that at least some of the experts mentioned by Khan had expressed negative views toward Israel long before the outbreak of the war.

For example, Prof. Kevin Jon Heller, whom Prosecutor Khan described as "independent," tweeted in 2020 that "two criminals (Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu) are conspiring to commit criminal acts against Palestine and the Palestinians." Heller has served as a special adviser on war crimes to Chief Prosecutor Khan for two years. On other occasions, Heller wrote that Israel practices "apartheid" against the Palestinians.

In 2015, he wrote that Israel is "committed to systematically depriving the innocent of their most basic rights," and is guilty of the "systematic oppression of the Palestinians." Heller dismissed arguments in favor of Israel as "fake law and propaganda."

Another adviser relied upon by Prosecutor Khan is Baroness Helena Kennedy, a member of the Labour Party and the British House of Lords. Kennedy had called for the ICC to prosecute Israel long before the Gaza war began. In March, she wrote, "The International Court of Justice (ICJ) has given a warning to Israel; now is the time for all of us to say: enough is enough." Kennedy accused Israel of war crimes since the beginning of the war, and she also claimed that there is no safe place in the Gaza Strip.

Another member of the advisory panel to the chief prosecutor is a lawyer named Danny Friedman, who admitted that he defines himself as a lawyer who happens to be Jewish, except when he condemns Israel – then he puts his Jewishness at the forefront. Ten days after Hamas's heinous attack, and before the ground operation had begun, Friedman had already accused Israel of war crimes. In November, he argued that international law required Israel to immediately cease its campaign, even while Hamas was holding hostages.

Kontorovich noted that the bias of these experts was systematic and completely one-sided. The prosecutor accused Israel of committing war crimes based on the advice of people who, when chosen, had already reached that conclusion.

He emphasized that the prosecutor's reliance on biased advisers contradicts the court's own rules. "The ICC's Code of Conduct for Prosecutors requires them to 'refrain from any activity which is likely to negatively affect the confidence of others in the independence or integrity of the Office.' The Code of Conduct says the 'impartiality' section requires 'refraining from expressing an opinion that could, objectively, adversely affect the required impartiality, whether through communications media, in writing or public addresses.' These rules don't apply to outside experts, but by selecting and relying on panel advisers who don't meet the ICC's own definition of impartiality, the prosecutor undermines his own."

Kontorovich stressed that Prosecutor Khan intentionally chose only advisers known not to accept Israel's position regarding the court's lack of jurisdiction. "It would have been easy for Mr. Khan to find experts with similar views who hadn't made their prejudices public. That Mr. Khan chose these advisers indicates that he valued certainty in the results above even the appearance of impartiality."

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