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international court of justice
ICC Rejects Israeli Bid to Thwart Gaza War Crimes Probe
Israel is seeking to invalidate the ICC's arrest warrants for fugitive Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for alleged crimes against humanity and war crimes.
Dec 15, 2025
Appellate judges at the embattled International Criminal Court on Monday rejected Israel's attempt to block an investigation into alleged Israeli war crimes committed during the Gaza genocide.
The ICC Appeals Chamber dismissed an Israeli challenge to the assertion that the October 7, 2023, attacks and subsequent war on Gaza were part of the same ongoing "situation" under investigation by the Hague-based tribunal since 2021. Israel argued they were separate matters that required new notice; however, the ICC panel found that the initial probe encompasses events on and after October 7.
The ruling—which focuses on but one of several Israeli legal challenges to the ICC—comes amid the tribunal's investigation into an Israeli war and siege that have left at least 250,000 Palestinians dead, maimed, or missing and 2 million more displaced, starved, or sickened.
The probe led to last year's ICC arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyhau and former Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity, including murder and forced starvation. The ICC also issued warrants for the arrest of three Hamas commanders—all of whom have since been killed by Israel.
Israel and the United States, neither of which are party to the Rome Statute governing the ICC, vehemently reject the tribunal's investigation. In the US—which has provided Israel with more than $21 billion in armed aid as well as diplomatic cover throughout the genocide—the Trump administration has sanctioned nine ICC jurists, leaving them and their families "wiped out socially and financially."
The other Hague-based global tribunal, the International Court of Justice, is currently weighing a genocide case against Israel filed in December 2023 by South Africa and backed by more than a dozen nations, as well as regional blocs representing dozens of countries.
University of Copenhagen international law professor Kevin Jon Heller—who is also a special adviser to the ICC prosecutor on war crimes—told Courthouse News Service that “the real importance of the decision is that it strongly implies Israel will lose its far more important challenge to the court’s jurisdiction over Israeli actions in Palestine."
Although Israel is not an ICC member and does not recognize its jurisdiction, Palestine is a state party to the Rome Statute, under which individuals from non-signatory nations can be held liable for crimes committed in the territory of a member state.
The Israeli Foreign Ministry condemned Monday's decision, calling it "yet another example of the ongoing politicization of the ICC and its blatant disregard for the sovereign rights of non-party states, as well as its own obligations under the Rome Statute."
The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), a Washington, DC-based advocacy group, welcomed the ICC decision.
“This ruling by the International Criminal Court affirms that no state is above the law and that war crimes must be fully and independently investigated," CAIR said in a statement. "Accountability is essential for justice, for the victims, and survivors, and for deterring future crimes against humanity.”
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ICJ Rejects Israeli Claims About UNRWA and Orders Officials to Provide More Aid to Gaza
"Yet another Israeli government lie—slavishly repeated by Western media—collapses," said one policy expert.
Oct 22, 2025
The commissioner-general of the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees said Wednesday that he welcomed an "unambiguous ruling by the International Court of Justice" affirming that the organization has not been infiltrated by Hamas, as Israel and its allies have persistently claimed, and that Israeli officials must cooperate with the UN to ensure Palestinians receive sufficient aid after nearly two years of starvation policy.
In an advisory opinion, the ICJ ruled 10-1 that as the occupying power in the West Bank and Gaza, Israel is responsible for providing aid to Palestinians and allowing the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) to operate in Gaza.
Israel has sought to ban UNRWA from Gaza since January 2024, when it alleged without evidence that a small number of staffers at the agency had participated in a Hamas-led attack on southern Israel in October 2023.
Multiple investigations found that Israel had not provided supporting evidence of the allegations, and the ICJ on Wednesday said that the country had “not substantiated its allegations that a significant number of UNRWA employees were members of Hamas.”
With the advisory opinion, said Trita Parsi of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, "yet another Israeli government lie—slavishly repeated by Western media—collapses."
ICJ President Yuji Iwasawa said in the ruling, which is not legally binding, that Israel's first obligation is to "ensure that the population of the occupied Palestinian territory has the essential supplies of daily life, including food, water, clothing, bedding, shelter, fuel, medical supplies, and services."
The court also ordered Israel to "agree to and facilitate by all means at its disposal relief schemes on behalf of the population of the occupied Palestinian territory so long as that population is inadequately supplied, as has been the case in the Gaza Strip."
UNRWA has said it has roughly 6,000 aid trucks that are ready to enter Gaza.
"With huge amounts of food and other lifesaving supplies on standby in Egypt and Jordan, UNRWA has the resources and expertise to immediately scale up the humanitarian response in Gaza and help alleviate the suffering of the civilian population," said Philippe Lazzarini, commissioner-general of the agency.
Israel began blocking humanitarian aid from entering Gaza following the Hamas-led attack in 2023, and intensified the blockade from March-May this year after breaking a ceasefire that began in January. More than 450 Palestinians have starved to death, and experts have warned that the many of the effects of starvation on those who have survived, especially children, may be irreversible. A famine was declared in August by the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, a UN-backed group.
UN Secretary-General António Guterres said the ICJ opinion "comes at a moment in which we are doing everything we can to boost our humanitarian aid in Gaza. So the impact of this decision is decisive in order for us to be able to do it to the level that is necessary for the tragic situation in which the people of Gaza still is.”
As it has with numerous other rulings by the ICJ, Israel immediately rejected the decision and claimed it was politically motivated. The US State Department also dismissed the ruling, saying it "unfairly bashe[d] Israel" and repeated the debunked allegations of UNRWA's "deep entanglement with and material support for Hamas terrorism."
Step Vaessen of Al Jazeera reported that "even if Israel ignores [the advisory opinion], as it’s done time and time again, all the UN countries are obliged to follow up on this court’s advice."
The ICJ is also considering a genocide case against Israel, brought by South Africa.
In September, a commission of independent experts at the UN said Western countries including the US must stop providing military aid to Israel as it found the country was carrying out a genocide in Gaza, citing several of the attacks that have killed more than 68,000 Palestinians since October 2023 and public statements made by Israeli officials demonstrating their intent to wipe out Gaza's population of 2.1 million people.
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Petro Calls for Moving UN HQ After Trump Admin Revokes His Visa Over Protest Speech
"What the US government is doing to me breaks all the norms of immunity on which the functioning of the United Nations and its General Assembly is based," Petro said.
Sep 27, 2025
The Trump administration on Friday revoked left-wing Colombian President Gustavo Petro's visa after he spoke to crowds of protesters in New York City, urging US soldiers not to point their guns at innocent civilians and to disobey the orders of US President Donald Trump.
The US State Department wrote on social media on Friday that Petro had "urged US soldiers to disobey orders and incite violence" and that it would revoked Petro's visa "due to his reckless and incendiary actions."
"Mr. Trump has violated the founding principles of the UN," Petro wrote on social media Saturday in response to the news.
Petro, who was in New York to attend the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA), criticized Trump in a speech before the UN on Tuesday, in which he called him "complicit in genocide" for backing Israel's war on Gaza and urged the UN to open criminal proceedings against Trump's air strikes on boats in the Caribbean alleged to be transporting drugs.
"This is the first time the US revokes a head of state’s visa for comments made during a UNGA visit."
While the Colombian leader had returned to his home country by the time he learned his visa had been revoked, he condemned the move as a major breach of international law.
"What the US government is doing to me breaks all the norms of immunity on which the functioning of the United Nations and its General Assembly is based," Petro wrote on social media on Saturday.
He pointed out that heads of state attending UN proceedings are supposed to receive total immunity.
"The fact that the Palestinian Authority was not allowed entry and that my visa was revoked for asking the US and Israeli armies not to support a genocide, which is a crime against all of humanity, demonstrates that the US government no longer complies with international law," Petro continued. "The United Nations headquarters cannot continue to be in New York."
Petro was not the only one to question whether the UN could continue to meet in the US after the Trump administration's actions.
"This is the first time the US revokes a head of state’s visa for comments made during a UNGA visit," Center for Economic and Policy Research senior research fellow Francisco Rodríguez pointed out on social media. "Both [Fidel] Castro and [Hugo] Chávez gave fiery off-site speeches in NY without retaliation. The action undermines the UN’s viability as a global forum and risks violating the 1947 HQ Agreement."
The agreement states in part that those granted immunity to attend UN gatherings "shall not be required to leave the United States otherwise than in accordance with the customary procedure" applied to all diplomats.
Craig Mokhiber, a human rights lawyer and former UN official, wrote: "This is just the latest breach of the obligations of the US to the UN. Member states must get serious about moving the UN to a safer host country. And the US-Israel axis must be held accountable."
Israel's nearly two-year assault on the Gaza Strip, which several human rights experts and bodies including a UN commission have named a genocide, was a key point of contention during the 80th session of the UNGA.
Petro emerged as a major voice in defense of the Palestinians in Gaza, calling for the creation of an international armed force to enter Gaza and end the genocide.
He repeated that call when he spoke to protesters outside the UN on Friday, as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was scheduled to speak.
"It is necessary to configure a more powerful army than that of the United States and Israel combined," Petro told the crowd.
It was also during this speech that he urged US soldiers to "disobey the orders of Trump" and "obey the orders of humanity," according to Reuters.
Colombia's Interior Minister Armando Benedetti wrote on social media that Netanyahu's visa should have been revoked instead.
"But since the empire protects him, they go after the only president who was capable of telling him the truth to his face," Benedetti said.
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