International Criminal Court Prosecutor Karim Khan speaks during an interview with Reuters in The Hague, Netherlands, Feb. 12, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Piroschka van de Wouw

Karim Khan, the embattled chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC), has cast fresh doubt on accusations that Israel committed “genocide” in Gaza, arguing in a new interview that no legal conclusion has yet been reached in the ongoing legal battle. 

In a lengthy interview with anti-Israel journalist Medhi Hasan this week, Khan refused to engage in the popularized rhetoric labeling Israel’s military campaign against Hamas terrorists in Gaza as genocidal, even as pressure mounts on the ICC by activists to pursue more sweeping charges against Israeli officials.

When asked directly whether Israel’s conduct amounted to genocide, Khan emphasized the need for sufficient evidence to level charges against Israeli officials and that prosecutors must follow evidence and legal standards rather than political narratives.

“So, you’re not ruling out that there could be a warrant in the future?” Hasan asked. 

“Everything is a function of evidence,” Khan responded, arguing that accusing Israel of genocide for political purposes would be “reckless.” 

“You’re saying in the past three years there hasn’t been evidence of genocide in Gaza?” Hasan asked, visibly flummoxed.

Khan lamented the “suffering” in Gaza but reaffirmed that the ICC could not proceed in making final judgements about the nature of Israel’s military operations in Gaza without sufficient evidence. He asserted that officials within the ICC are vigorously analyzing the case and that he cannot reveal more about the nature of the investigation.

“So, genocide is not off limits?” Hasan pressed.

“No crime is off limits if the evidence is there,” Khan responded.

Khan has come under fire for making his initial surprise demand for arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former defense minister, Yoav Gallant, on the same day in May 2024 that he suddenly canceled a long-planned visit to both Gaza and Israel to collect evidence of alleged war crimes. The last-second cancellation reportedly infuriated US and British leaders, as the trip would have offered Israeli leaders a first opportunity to present their position and outline any action they were taking to respond to the war crime allegations.

Nonetheless, Khan’s latest remarks are likely to reverberate through international legal and diplomatic circles, where the genocide accusation has become one of the most contentious aspects of the war between Israel and Hamas. Over the past two years, an array of humanitarian organizations and human rights experts have accused Israel of “genocide” in Gaza. These accusations have been controversial and widely contested, with critics alleging these groups and individuals lack sufficient evidence. 

Khan’s comments come as the ICC faces intense scrutiny over its investigation into the conflict. In November, the ICC issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, his former defense minister, Yoav Gallant, and now-deceased Hamas terror leader Ibrahim al-Masri (better known as Mohammed Deif) for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity in the Gaza conflict. The ICC said there were reasonable grounds to believe Netanyahu and Gallant were criminally responsible for starvation in Gaza and the persecution of Palestinians — charges vehemently denied by Israel, which has provided significant humanitarian aid into the war-torn enclave throughout the war.

US and Israeli officials issued blistering condemnations of the ICC move, decrying the court for drawing a moral equivalence between Israel’s democratically elected leaders and the heads of Hamas, the Palestinian terrorist group that launched the war in Gaza with its massacre across southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.

Israel says it has gone to unprecedented lengths to try and avoid civilian casualties, noting its efforts to evacuate areas before it targets them and to warn residents of impending military operations with leaflets, text messages, and other forms of communication.

Another challenge for Israel is Hamas’s widely recognized military strategy of embedding its terrorists within Gaza’s civilian population and commandeering civilian facilities like hospitals, schools, and mosques to run operations and direct attacks.

The ICC has no jurisdiction over Israel as it is not a signatory to the Rome Statute, which established the court. Other countries including the US have similarly not signed the ICC charter. However, the ICC has asserted jurisdiction by accepting “Palestine” as a signatory in 2015, despite no such state being recognized under international law.

Genocide is among the most difficult crimes to prove under international law because prosecutors must establish specific intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group.

Hasan, one of the most prominent anti-Israel critics in media, has spent the past two years unleashing an unrelenting barrage of criticism against the Jewish state, repeatedly accusing the Israeli military of pursuing a “genocide” in Gaza. 

In the interview, Khan also forcefully denied allegations of sexual misconduct that have engulfed his office in recent months, accusing critics of politicizing the claims amid the ICC’s high-profile investigations into Israel, Russia, and other global conflicts. He dismissed suggestions that his pursuit of Israeli leaders was intended to distract from the allegations against him, saying that he did not have evidence to substantiate the claim. 

Khan further alleged that senior Western officials attempted to pressure the ICC over its investigation, including what he described as warnings from prominent American and British political figures about the geopolitical consequences of targeting Israeli officials.

The ICC’s investigation has placed the court at the center of an increasingly bitter international divide over the Gaza war. Khan’s comments won’t settle the debate, but the ICC prosecutor appeared to signal a more cautious legal approach than some of Israel’s fiercest critics have demanded.

The TikTok logo is pictured outside the company’s US head office in Culver City, California, US, Sep. 15, 2020. Photo: REUTERS

British police have charged two men with religiously aggravated harassment offenses after they were alleged to have traveled to a Jewish area of north London to film antisemitic social media videos.

The two men, Adam Bedoui, 20, and Abdelkader Amir Bousloub, 21, are due to appear at Thames Magistrates’ Court, a statement from the Crown Prosecution Service said on Saturday.

A bronze seal for the Department of the Treasury is shown at the US Treasury building in Washington, US, Jan. 20, 2023. Photo: REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque

The US Treasury on Friday announced sanctions against 10 individuals and companies, including several in China and Hong Kong, over accusations they aided Iran’s efforts to secure weapons and the raw materials needed to build its Shahed drones and ballistic missiles.

The Treasury move, first reported by Reuters, comes days before US President Donald Trump plans to travel to China for a meeting with President Xi Jinping and as efforts to end the war with Iran have stalled.

In a statement, Treasury said it remained ready to take economic action against Iran’s military industrial base to prevent Tehran from reconstituting its production capacity.

Treasury said it was also prepared to act against any foreign company supporting illicit Iranian commerce, including airlines, and could impose secondary sanctions on foreign financial institutions that aid Iran’s efforts, including those connected to China’s independent “teapot” oil refineries.

Brett Erickson, managing principal at Obsidian Risk Advisors, said Treasury’s actions were aimed at cracking down on Iran’s ability to threaten ships operating in the Strait of Hormuz and regional allies.

Iran shut the Strait of Hormuz, a narrow chokepoint between Iran and Oman through which a fifth of the world’s ​crude oil and liquefied natural gas passes, after the US and Israel attacked a large number of targets in Iran on February 28. Shipping through the crucial waterway has ground to a near ⁠halt since the war began, sending energy prices sharply higher.

Iran is a major drone manufacturer and has the industrial capacity to produce around 10,000 a month, according to the British government-fund Center for Information Resilience.

Erickson said the sanctions were still narrowly focused, giving Iran more time to adapt and reroute procurement to other suppliers. Treasury was also not yet going after Chinese banks that were keeping Iran’s economy going, he added.

The companies facing sanctions include:

• China-based Yushita Shanghai International Trade Co Ltd for facilitating acquisition efforts for Iran to purchase weapons from China.

• Dubai-based Elite Energy FZCO for transferring millions of dollars to a Hong Kong company to aid the procurement effort.

• Hong Kong-based HK Hesin Industry Co Ltd and Belarus-based Armory Alliance LLC for working as intermediaries in the procurements.

• Hong Kong-based Mustad Ltd for facilitating weapon procurement by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

• Iran-based Pishgam Electronic Safeh Co for procuring motors used in drones.

• China-based Hitex Insulation Ningbo Co Ltd for supplying materials used in ballistic missiles.