The legal department in the Israeli Ministry of Defense, as well as the army leadership, have begun preparing to confront what is described as a “tsunami” of international legal prosecutions of officers and soldiers due to Israeli practices during the ongoing war on the Gaza Strip since October 7 last year. Various legal prosecutions threaten to arrest officers and soldiers in countries around the world and bring them to trial.
The Hebrew newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth, which reported the news on Wednesday, said: “The army is preparing for an unprecedented international legal war after the end of the war.” He expects that foreign journalists and representatives of human rights organizations will flock to Gaza the day after the war to witness with their own eyes the extent of the destruction and damage caused to the Palestinian population as a result of Israeli practices. In addition to the massive destruction of infrastructure and property, they will be confronted with tens and perhaps hundreds of thousands of civilian victims, most of them children and women, and manifestations of famine and diseases that have claimed and will claim the lives of children and the elderly, in addition to Israel’s appearance before the International Supreme Court of Justice in The Hague, on charges of committing genocide.
The newspaper added, “With the opening of the Gaza Strip to the world after the war, the Israelis expect a big jump in demands to issue international arrest warrants for army officers and soldiers, and to file indictments for war crimes.” She stressed that “the army fears that the consequences of the unprecedented violent fighting in Gaza may not only endanger officers and soldiers abroad, but will also fundamentally limit the freedom to continue the army’s future operations, which depend, among other things, on international legitimacy and recognition by the West.” “Israel has the right to defend itself against every enemy.”
She saw that “international legal pressure on Israel began gradually even before the war, when in 2019 the International Criminal Court supported conducting an investigation against Israel, and then announced in 2021 that it had the authority to do so.”
The newspaper quoted an unnamed army source as saying: “Now pressure is expanding from several countries to give priority to legal measures against the Israeli army and the state, and not just by South Africa,” referring to the lawsuit it filed before the International Court of Justice. She said that the head of the International Law Department in the Military Prosecutor’s Office, Lieutenant Colonel Roni Katsir, and his assistants have become the busiest in recent months. “The International Law Department in the Military Prosecutor’s Office will grow significantly, and will soon become a department led by a brigadier general, with dozens of military lawyers.”
She continued: “Since the first day of the war, representatives of the Military Prosecutor’s Office have accompanied every army action and attack in Gaza, and have prepared files with incriminating evidence justifying the attacks, especially strongholds in buildings such as mosques, schools, and clinics.”
The newspaper added, “During the war, the Israeli army destroyed or damaged tens of thousands of buildings and homes, confiscated hundreds of dunams of Palestinian land to create a buffer zone on the Gaza side of the border fence, and set fire to hundreds of homes.” In any such case, the army could be asked the day after the war to answer why it behaved in that way or risk being charged with war crimes. If the ICC receives evidence proving that civilian sites were indeed destroyed without any practical justification, international arrest warrants may be issued against Israeli officers, soldiers and senior officials.
The newspaper revealed that Israeli diplomatic missions abroad received information and data indicating that pro-Palestinian organizations in Europe had already begun preparing blacklists of the names of hundreds of Israeli soldiers and officers who participated in the war, especially those whose identities were published and those who posted on social media sites pictures and video clips of themselves destroying… buildings or take revenge on the Palestinians.
The newspaper pointed out that “Defense Minister Yoav Galant, based on an explicit and exceptional request from the United States, delivered to the US Department of Defense (the Pentagon) a letter of commitment from Israel stating that there is no violation of the laws of war in Israel by using American weapons that Washington supplies to the Israeli army.” . She promised that “this is one of the security apparatus’s initial moves in dealing with the legal battle against the Israeli army and the state, which will expand with the end of the fight against Hamas.”
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