The US House of Representatives on Thursday passed its first major foreign policy bill of the 119th Congressional session – in which both chambers are Republican-controlled – to sanction officials at the International Criminal Court (ICC) for issuing an arrest warrant for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
The warrant, issued in November, is for war crimes and crimes against humanity during Israel’s ongoing assault on Gaza. The Biden administration was quick to condemn the warrant at the time.
The Biden administration’s language is now mirrored in Thursday’s bill that condemns the ICC’s actions, entitled the Illegitimate Court Counteraction Act, which would likely end up on President-elect Donald Trump’s desk if it passes the Senate.
For its part, the House voted 243-140-1 to sanction anyone associated with the ICC’s efforts to investigate, arrest, detain, or prosecute any “protected person” of the US and its friends abroad who are not party to the Rome Statute, which established the court.
The legislation also mentions the warrant issued against Israel’s former defence minister, Yoav Gallant.
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There were 45 Democrats who joined their Republican colleagues in voting for the bill.
The text of the bill stipulates the US would impose “visa- and property-blocking sanctions against the foreign persons that engaged in or materially assisted” in an investigation or arrest of Americans and their allies, and that “the president must also apply visa-blocking sanctions to the immediate family members of those sanctioned”.
Brian Mast, the newly elected House Foreign Affairs Committee chair who pushed to make the bill a priority, wore his Israeli army uniform on Capitol Hill in the days after the 7 October 2023 Hamas-led attack on southern Israel.
Mast is the only known member of Congress to have also been active in the Israeli forces.
“A kangaroo court is seeking to arrest the prime minister of our great ally, Israel, which is not only responding to an enemy which conducted a genocide,” Mast said on Thursday, “but an enemy who still holds 100 hostages.”
Earlier this week, House speaker Mike Johnson said the bill is intended to put ICC prosecutor Karim Khan – who requested the warrants for Netanyahu, Gallant and three now-deceased senior Hamas leaders – “back in his place”.
The top Republican in the Senate, John Thune, said he stands ready to bring the bill to the floor “soon”, but procedurally – because of the disruption to policymaking known as the filibuster – it may require up to 60 votes to pass, which may be a hurdle.
Once enacted, however, the bill would take effect within 60 days.
ICC arrest warrants
Netanyahu and Gallant are wanted by the ICC and were issued arrest warrants for “the war crime of starvation as a method of warfare and the crimes against humanity of murder, persecution, and other inhumane acts”.
All 124 members of the Rome Statute, the treaty that established the ICC, are now compelled to arrest the two Israelis and hand them over to the court.
A trial cannot commence in absentia, and the court does not have enforcement powers.
In its statement, the ICC’s Pre-Trial Chamber I, a panel of three judges, said there were reasonable grounds to believe that the two Israelis “intentionally and knowingly deprived the civilian population in Gaza of objects indispensable to their survival”.
These include food, water, medicine, medical supplies, fuel, and electricity.
Further, the intentional limiting of medical supplies, such as anaesthetics and anaesthesia machines, meant Netanyahu and Gallant bore responsibility “for inflicting great suffering by means of inhumane acts on persons in need of treatment”.
It said that doctors being forced to carry out amputations without anaesthetics and sedate patients via unsafe means amounted to “the crime against humanity of other inhumane acts”.
All these actions “deprived a significant portion of the civilian population in Gaza of their fundamental rights”, including the rights to life and health. The Palestinian population was also targeted “based on political and/or national grounds”.
“It therefore found that the crime against humanity of persecution was committed,” the statement said.
