President Joe Biden said the United States does not recognize the authority of the International Criminal Court, which is seeking arrest warrants for the leaders of Israel and Hamas on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity for actions during their months-long war.
“We’ve made our position clear on the ICC. We don’t recognize their jurisdiction … and it’s that simple,” Biden said Thursday during a joint news conference at the White House with Kenyan President William Ruto. “We don’t think there’s an equivalence between what Israel did and what Hamas did.”
Earlier this week, the court’s chief prosecutor, Karim Khan, accused Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant of “intentionally directing attacks against a civilian population” and “starvation of civilians” as a warfare tactic in Gaza. Khan also sought arrest warrants for Hamas leaders Yehya Sinwar, Mohammed Deif and Ismail Haniyeh for the militant group’s Oct. 7 attack on Israel. A decision from a three-judge panel on whether to issue the warrants normally takes a couple of months.
While the U.S. helped negotiate the ICC’s creation in the 1990s and then-President Bill Clinton signed the court’s founding treaty, it is not a state party to the court.
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