Middle East Eye reported on Monday that the ICC prosecutor’s office last month filed a secret arrest warrant application for Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich over alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity committed against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank. The charges against Smotrich reportedly include forced displacement as a crime against humanity and war crime, the transfer of Israel’s own population as a war crime into occupied territories, and persecution and apartheid as crimes against humanity.
In a letter to the ICC’s deputy prosecutors in March, which MEE says it has seen, Palestine’s mission to the Hague outlined further evidence of alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity by settlers and Israeli occupation forces. The letter also noted that Israel has failed to prosecute the alleged crimes. “The urgency to take action now cannot be overstated in any way, with the erasure and the destruction of the Palestinian people, as manifested by an illegal occupant, materializing by the day,” the letter read.
The prosecutor’s office has neither confirmed nor denied that it is seeking an arrest warrant for Smotrich.
Smotrich himself responded to the news by threatening to commit even more such crimes against the Palestinians: “Issuing arrest warrants against the prime minister is a declaration of war. Issuing arrest warrants against the minister of defense and the minister of finance [Smotrich] is a declaration of war. And in the face of a declaration of war, we will fight back with a vengeance.” He accused the Palestinian Authority of starting a war by engaging with the ICC to provide evidence.
Smotrich said that he is “very proud” of his settlement expansion policies. Then he made his vow: “From today, any economic or otherwise, anything that I can harm within the framework of my powers … will be attacked. Not talk and gimmicks—actions.” He proceeded to sign an immediate order to expel all the residents of Khan al-Ahmar, a village of Palestinian Bedouins near Jerusalem.
Peace Now, an Israeli anti-settlement watchdog group, responded: “Minister Smotrich seeks to take revenge on The Hague and the international community at the expense of one of the most vulnerable communities, which for years has struggled simply for the right to live on the small piece of land in its possession.” The destruction of the village is “part of a broader government plan to take control of the entire central West Bank area” and remove Palestinians from the area. Of note, the village lies in a tract of land where Israel’s government is establishing a new settlement bloc called E1. While all seizures of West Bank land is illegal, this E1 area is a strategic location whose absorption would make it virtually impossible to establish a viable and contiguous Palestinian state.
