Victor KattanThe legal tsunami Israeli pundits have long warned of may be fast approaching. On the same day 27 Western states issued a public statement warning of “further action” in support of an immediate ceasefire if the conflict in Gaza continues, two Israeli soldiers accused of war crimes were arrested and questioned by Belgian authorities.
In international law, states may be held accountable for their crimes in one of two ways: the state itself may be the target of sanctions or expulsion from international organisations, and its officials and their subordinates who commit, order, aid, abet, or assist such crimes may be prosecuted before international and domestic courts.
Last week, the Emergency Conference of The Hague Group brought together 30 like-minded Global South states in Bogota, Colombia, to move beyond words of condemnation and take collective action grounded in international law.
Twelve of these states agreed to the immediate implementation of six measures, including stopping arms transfers to Israel and prosecuting international crimes in their national jurisdictions on the basis of universal jurisdiction. They invited other states to join them before the opening of the next UN General Assembly in September.
The arrests in Belgium were facilitated by the Hind Rajab Foundation and the Global Legal Action Network (GLAN), which are undertaking similar work in multiple jurisdictions. Both organisations were behind previous investigations that forced a holidaying Israeli soldier to flee Brazil last year, and two soldiers to flee Amsterdam in February.
Their message is clear: Israeli soldiers accused of crimes in Gaza can never be sure when their turn will come.
Are these measures the start of a real break in impunity — and the beginning of coordinated legal and political action to hold Israel accountable for its crimes in Gaza, where its armed forces have killed more than 59,000 people – mostly women and children – over 21 months?
Or will these accountability efforts remain confined to the Global South and civil society?
Israel in the dock
There are reasons to think that policymakers in Western capitals are recalibrating their policies towards Israel.
British Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer has come under increasing pressure to recognise the State of Palestine from within his cabinet, before there is "nothing left to recognise”.
The million-dollar question is whether these states will go beyond symbolic gestures like recognition to take concrete measures to end Israeli impunity.
While the EU remains divided over imposing economic sanctions on Israel, which would be especially impactful as it is Israel’s largest trading partner, Palestine’s campaign for international justice relentlessly presses forward.
Despite the unprecedented US sanctions targeting the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) and its judges, investigations into Israel’s suspected war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza and elsewhere continue.
Before he took a leave of absence, the prosecutor had announced that his office was looking into crimes committed, not just in Gaza, but also in the occupied West Bank.
Israeli far-right leaders, including Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben-Gvir, have made comments publicly justifying crimes against humanity, and have been sanctioned by the EU and the governments of Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Norway and the UK.
They, and their subordinates working for the Settlement Administration are likely to be at the top of any prosecutor’s list of alleged perpetrators of crimes under the ICC Statute.
According to a report in The Wall Street Journal, the ICC Prosecutor had been preparing warrants of arrest for senior settler leaders before he went on leave.
While Israel’s two largest arms suppliers – the US and Germany – are not among the 27 Western states that issued the recent warning, both are under pressure to change course.
In the US, opposition towards Israel’s crimes in Gaza has come from surprising quarters, with an evangelical backlash against Israel growing inside Trump’s MAGA base following Israeli attacks on Christian places of worship in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT), including an attack on a Catholic Church in Gaza.
The publication of a groundbreaking report in June by UN special rapporteur Francesca Albanese (who has also been sanctioned by the Trump administration) on the role of corporations (many of which are American) in sustaining Israel’s ongoing crimes in the OPT has put companies on notice – that they could be complicit in Tel Aviv’s genocidal war if they do not cease doing business in Israel or divest from companies complicit in the commission of crimes.
Already, KLP, Norway’s largest pension company, has divested from Caterpillar, whose machines, including the D-9 bulldozer, have a long history of being used by the Israeli military to destroy Palestinian homes.
The fund justified its decision, saying that “investing in Caterpillar constitutes an unacceptable risk of contributing to the violation of the rights of individuals in situations of war or conflict due to the company’s links with the Israeli settlements in the (occupied) West Bank”.
In the Netherlands, a criminal complaint filed with the Dutch Public Prosecutor by several NGOs has accused booking.com, a popular online travel agency, of money laundering and profiting from the proceeds derived from the commission of war crimes by facilitating the rental of vacation homes in illegal Israeli settlements on lands stolen from Palestinians.
Is the tide turning?
Germany, Israel’s second-largest arms supplier, is currently defending itself in a case brought against it by Nicaragua at the International Court of Justice (ICJ), the other permanent international court in The Hague.
In its application to the court, Nicaragua claimed, among other things, that Germany has provided political, financial and military support to Israel while being “fully aware at the time of authorisation” that the military equipment would be used in the commission of grave breaches of international humanitarian law.
According to recent polling data, German public opinion has shifted dramatically against Israel, with 57 per cent now holding a negative view of the country following its military actions in Gaza. At least 73 per cent of respondents indicated they saw “some truth” in the statement that Israel's actions in Gaza constitute genocide.
Meanwhile, Israel is facing charges of committing the gravest crime known to humankind in the case South Africa filed at the ICJ under the International Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.
And inside Israel, distinguished Israeli lawyers have published another letter (among a series of such letters) warning their government that a plan to concentrate the population of Gaza in a so-called “humanitarian city” on the ruins of Rafah would, if implemented, “constitute a series of war crimes and crimes against humanity, and under certain conditions, could amount to the crime of genocide.”
For the time being, actions to hold Israel accountable are likely to remain confined to international courts and Global South states, although the arrests in Belgium and criminal complaints against companies in the Netherlands may indicate that some Global North actors are growing weary of defending Israel’s innumerable crimes and hardening their stance – especially as starvation grips Gaza.
The global support that Israel could still count on just a year ago – before it assassinated Hamas’ senior leadership, bested Hezbollah in Lebanon, bombed Iran’s nuclear facilities, and military bases in Syria and Yemen – appears to be weakening.
Albeit much too belatedly, some Western policymakers and senior jurists (see also this letter from UK lawyers) have come to realise that the war in Gaza was never about Israel’s “right of self-defence” but punishing Palestinians for their fortitude and resilience to stay rooted in the land of their forebearers.
