THE long-awaited threat by the International Criminal Court to act against Israel has finally been issued. The court's chief prosecutor Karim Khan wrote on Monday on X , formerly Twitter, that the ICC would be pushed to act against Israel if its military activity in Rafah continues.
Karim's warning comes as fears of a ground offensive grow. Since Oct 7, Israel has been using aicraft, ships and tanks to pursue its genocidal war against Palestinians under the pretext of eliminating Hamas, the defence forces of the democratically elected homonymous government in Gaza.
Condemning Tel Aviv on Monday, Malaysia warned that an Israeli ground offensive would be catastrophic. Rafah is the last refuge for the persecuted 2.3 million Palestinians. It now houses more than a million Palestinian civilians. As Malaysia has pointed out, the key goal of the Zionist regime's military operation is to remove Palestinians from their own land.
Putrajaya's message to Tel Aviv: desist and obey your obligations under international law. If it was truly a law-abiding nation, it would. The brutal truth is, Israel is an illegal settler colonial project meant to erase Palestinians from Palestine. There is no better example of ethnic cleansing.
This is why the "desist" issuing out of the ICC is important. Israel is a nation of impunity gone berserk. What is worse, its allies are boosting its impunity. The problem is Israel's allies don't realise that with friends like the Zionist regime, they don't need any enemies. But this is a Leader for another time. Sure, the ICC will face problems in hauling Benjamin Netanyahu and his ministers to The Hague to face war crime charges.
Tel Aviv will refuse Khan or any officers of the ICC entry into Israel as it did last year. They will ignore his warning of action against Israel as Tel Aviv did twice last year. Once, speaking from Ramallah, he reminded Israel of the need for combatants to respect the laws of war.
Again in December, he called on Israel to respect the rules of war and warned that he was speeding up investigations into violence by illegal Israeli settlers against Palestinians. Nothing much has changed in the behaviour of Israel, Khan wrote in X on Monday. Even the International Court of Justice, the world's highest court, was not spared by Israel.
It was ridiculed for agreeing to hear a genocide case against Israel filed by South Africa. What was worse, as the ICJ ruled that Israel was likely committing genocide in Gaza, Netanyahu intensified his military attack on Palestinian civilians. No nation that respects international law will behave as the Zionist regime of Israel has behaved for three-quarters of a century.
But this doesn't mean the ICC should give up or take it slow. In fact, the situation demands as quick an action as it took in Ukraine. The situation is dire. Just on Monday, the Wafa news agency reported that Israel's attack on Monday killed more than 100 civilians, mostly women and children.
Some of those who escape death, die of hunger and lack of medicine as Tel Aviv continues to block humanitarian aid from reaching them. Although the ICC has an investigation ongoing since 2021, it gives the impression that it is too slow to act against Israel. This time Khan must fulfil his threat. A warrant against Netanyahu is a must.