Israel’s war on Gaza updates: ICC says Israel used starvation as weapon

International Criminal Court Prosecutor Karim Khan says a country cannot have “as a common plan collective punishment” despite the right to defend itself.

Speaking to The Times newspaper, he said: “I couldn’t be clearer, Israel has every right to protect its population and to get the hostages back. But nobody has a licence to commit war crimes or crimes against humanity.”

Khan acknowledged that civilian casualties are an unfortunate reality of armed conflict, particularly in urban areas, according to the newspaper.

“It’s another thing for civilians to be deliberately targeted. You can’t have as a common plan collective punishment,” he said.

He added: “It’s absolutely legitimate for Israel to have the objective to defeat Hamas and to get hostages out, I support that. But the way you engage must be compliant with law.”

Khan also dismissed as “nonsense” suggestions that he was trying to establish moral equivalence with the charges.

The ICC prosecutor said last week he had requested arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, his defence chief and three Hamas leaders over alleged war crimes. Representatives of both sides slammed Khan’s decision.

This live page is now closed. Follow along for the latest updates in the Israel-Gaza war on our new page, here.

Read more about why ICC Prosecutor Khan is seeking arrest warrants against Israeli and Hamas leaders, here.

And read about how the world reacted to the historic request, here.

This live page will close soon. Here’s a recap of the day’s events.

• ICC Prosecutor Karim Khan filed an application for arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Defence Minister Yoav Gallant and three Hamas leaders, Yahya Sinwar, Mohammed Diab Ibrahim Al-Masri and Ismail Haniyeh.
• The unprecedented move has divided Western countries, with the US among the loudest critics of the ICC prosecutor. Several international rights groups have cheered the effort.
• Intensified fighting has continued, with several people killed in attacks in central Gaza and at least 18 killed in Jabalia and Beit Lahiya in northern Gaza.
• The UN has said 900,000 people – 40 percent of Gaza’s population – have been forced to flee within the enclave in the last two weeks of intensified fighting.

Speaking at a UN Security Council meeting on Rafah, Pascale Baeriswyl said Switzerland was “concerned about possible war crimes and recalls the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court”.

She added Switzerland “fully supports the court and stresses the importance of respecting its independence”.

The Israeli army has intensified air and ground attacks on northern Gaza for nearly a week, after months of a lull in the fighting in the area.

Watch our video for scenes from the ground in Beit Lahiya in the north of the Strip.

France says it has long warned of the consequences of violating international humanitarian law, particularly in regards to the “unacceptable” number of civilians killed in Gaza, as well as “insufficient humanitarian access”.

The French Foreign Ministry said in a statement it supported the ICC, “its independence, and the fight against impunity in all situations”.

But the statement fell short of explicitly saying that France supported ICC prosecutor Khan for seeking arrest warrants for both Israeli and Hamas leaders.

The statement added that France supports a “lasting political solution in the region”, saying it is the only way that will “put an end to the suffering of Israelis and Palestinians alike”.

Speaking at a UN Security Council meeting on Rafah, Riyad Mansour said there is “only one conclusion to draw” from Israel’s actions in Gaza.

“[Israel] is deliberately destroying life in Gaza and it will not be deterred by the rules of international law or positions adopted by state or international bodies,” he said.

“It will only be deterred by resolute action, holding it accountable for its decisions and forcing it to change course.”

Biden made the statement during a Jewish American Heritage Month event at the White House.

“What’s happening in Gaza is not genocide,” Biden said.

In March, Francesca Albanese, the UN special rapporteur on human rights in the occupied Palestinian territory, presented a report on the situation in Gaza.

At the time, she said, “There are reasonable grounds to believe that the threshold indicating the commission of the crime of genocide… has been met.”

At least four Palestinians have been killed in an Israeli attack on an area in the southern part of Gaza City, the Wafa news agency reports.

The strike hit a residential home in the Sabra neighbourhood that belonged to the Qandil family, Wafa said. The bodies have been taken to the al-Ahli Arab Hospital in Gaza.

Wafa said Israeli forces earlier struck a home that belonged to the al-Zaharnah family in the Tuffah neighbourhood, also in Gaza City, killing at least three Palestinians.

Speaking during a TV interview, Antonio Tajani condemned ICC prosecutor Khan for seeking arrest warrants for both Israeli leaders and leaders of Hamas.

“It seems to me truly singular, I would say unacceptable, to equate a government legitimately elected by the people in a democracy with a terrorist organisation that is the cause of everything that is happening in the Middle East,” Tajani said.

The statement echoes similar condemnations made by the US, UK and Germany earlier today.

The military said it had intercepted two aerial targets approaching Israel from the east. It said the launches did not enter Israeli territory.

The Islamic Resistance in Iraq, an umbrella group of Iran-backed armed groups in the country, said it had launched two drones towards the southern city of Eilat.

The Israeli military also said it intercepted a launch from Syrian territory.

Divisions within the Democratic party and its progressive flank over ICC prosecutor Khan’s request for arrest warrants for Netanyahu and Gallant have been on full display.

Speaking on the Senate floor today, Senate Majority leader Chuck Schumer, the top Democrat in the chamber, called Khan’s move “profoundly unfair” and “reprehensible”.

He accused the ICC of harbouring “deep biases” against Israel.

Meanwhile, progressive Senator Bernie Sanders, an Independent who caucuses with Democrats, said Khan was “right to take these actions”.

“Without these standards of decency and morality, this planet may rapidly descend into anarchy, never-ending wars, and barbarism,” he said in a statement.

We’ve been reporting on a request from the International Criminal Court prosecutor for arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Defence Minister Yoav Gallant and three Hamas leaders.

Watch our video for a recap of the facts of this ongoing story:

Josep Borrell has said in a statement: “I take note of the decision of the ICC Prosecutor to apply for warrants of arrest before Pre-Trial Chamber I of the International Criminal Court (ICC) against Yahya Sinwar, Mohammed Deif, Ismail Haniyeh, Benjamin Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant.”

“The mandate of the ICC, as an independent international institution, is to prosecute the most serious crimes under international law. All states that have ratified the ICC statutes are bound to execute the court’s decisions,” he said in a post on X, without elaborating.

Israel is not a state party to the court.

US President Joe Biden has repeatedly vowed to wind down operations, and eventually close, the Guantanamo Bay detention centre. The Cuba-based facility has long been emblematic of the US “global war on terror” and the practice of holding hundreds of people in indefinite detention without charges.

But Biden paused the transfer of 11 detainees from the facility in the wake of the October 7 Hamas attack on southern Israel, according to a report by NBC News. That was over concerns about the “political optics” of moving the detainees to countries in the Middle East, according to the broadcaster.

The date for the transfer of the men, who officials told NBC were either Yemeni or had ties to Yemen, has not been rescheduled. Thirty men remain in detention at Guantanamo.

The Commission for Detainees’ Affairs, the Palestinian Prisoner’s Society and the Addameer Association for Human Rights have said that this toll includes:

• 293 women
• 620 children
• 75 journalists
• More than 5,900 who were served administrative detention orders

The organisations said that the period since October 7 has seen an increase in the brutal tactics exercised by Israeli prison authorities, including humiliation, assault and beatings, as well as threats against detainees and their families.

“Eighteen detainees were martyred in Israeli prisons and military camps since October 7,” the groups said.

The data does not include detainees from Gaza, “due to the occupation’s refusal to provide any information about numbers and fate, and the continuation of forced disappearance in their case”.

Nearly 40 percent of Gaza’s population has been displaced over the past two weeks, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) says.

That is more than 900,000 people, it said, adding that the forced displacement of thousands of people from Gaza’s southern city of Rafah and in northern Gaza continues.

OCHA warned of a “further surge in malnutrition and communicable diseases” due to displacement towards areas that lack food, water and other basic supplies.

Gaza’s Health Ministry has appealed for support to address acute shortages of medications, it said.

Palestinians across the enclave are facing dwindling supplies as Israeli forces continue to impose a blockade, barring the entry of much-needed aid from entering through several crossings, including the vital Rafah border crossing with Egypt.

Jake Sullivan has held meetings with Israeli officials, including members of the war cabinet, to discuss the situation in Gaza and the US’s “unwavering support for Israel”, the White House said in a statement.

Among those he met were Israeli opposition leader Yair Lapid, Defence Minister Yoav Gallant, as well as Israeli war cabinet members Benny Gantz and Gadi Eisenkot.

Sullivan received “updated briefings” on Israeli operations in Gaza, and reiterated US President Joe Biden’s position on the ongoing offensive in southern Gaza’s Rafah, the statement said. Biden has urged Netanyahu not to invade Rafah without safeguards for civilians.

According to the statement, Sullivan also discussed the “importance of Israel and Egypt concluding talks to reopen the Rafah crossing as soon as possible”. Much-needed humanitarian aid has been barred from entering Gaza through the vital border crossing with Egypt, after Israeli forces seized the Palestinian side earlier this month.

Sullivan also stressed the “imperative” to further surge aid throughout Gaza, using all available crossings, the statement added.