The New York Mayor’s Vow to Arrest Netanyahu

In September 2025, while running for mayor of New York City, Zohran Mamdani vowed that, if elected, he would order the New York Police Department (NYPD) to arrest Benjamin Netanyahu if the Israeli Prime Minister were to set foot in the city.

Mamdani’s pledge was to honor an arrest warrant for Netanyahu issued by the International Criminal Court (ICC) on November 21, 2024. The Israeli leader is wanted for war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza, including the use of starvation as a weapon of war.

“This is a moment where we cannot look to the federal government for leadership,” said Mamdani. “This is a moment when cities and states will have to demonstrate what it actually looks like to stand up for our own values, our own people.”

As the New York Times reported at the time,

Legal experts suggested that having Mr. Netanyahu arrested would be a practical impossibility, and some said it could violate federal law.

. . . The United States is not a party to the International Criminal Court and does not recognize its authority. President Trump moved to punish the court in February for issuing the warrant for Mr. Netanyahu’s arrest, arguing that it had “no jurisdiction over the United States or Israel.”

On February 6, 2025, Trump had issued an executive order to impose sanctions on the ICC for “targeting America and our close ally Israel” despite the ICC having “no jurisdiction over the United States or Israel, as neither country is party to the Rome Statute”.

What Trump’s executive order leaves out is that, while the US and Israel aren’t party to the Rome Statute, which is the founding instrument of the ICC, Afghanistan and Palestine are.

Instructively, the New York Times, ever dutiful in service to Washington when it comes to bipartisan support for US violations of international law, also neglected to explain that detail to readers.

The “targeting” of the US by the ICC refers to an ICC investigation into violations of international human rights law and international humanitarian law occurring in the context of the US government’s war in Afghanistan. In addition to actions by the Taliban and Afghan security forces, the Court has jurisdiction to investigate the acts of torture and other abuses of detainees committed by US military and intelligence officers.

Naturally, those in Washington responsible for serious international crimes do not wish to be held accountable.

Similarly, because Palestine is a party to the Rome Statute, the ICC has jurisdiction to investigate serious crimes in the Israeli occupied territories of Gaza and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem.

Since October 2023, Israel has waged a genocidal assault in the Gaza Strip, and the ICC has acted within its authority to issue the arrest warrant for Netanyahu.

With Mamdani having made his campaign pledge ten months prior and acting as mayor for over six months, the New York Times reported on July 18 that he was reiterating his vow to have Netanyahu arrested.

Mamdani told the Times, “I believe that Prime Minister Netanyahu belongs in the Hague.”

The Hague is the administrative capital of the Netherlands and also serves as the headquarters for the ICC, established under the Rome Statute, and the International Court of Justice (ICJ), a separate body established under the UN Charter.

As the Times explained,

The mayor said it was unclear to him whether he has the legal authority to order the Police Department, which he oversees, to detain a foreign leader like Mr. Netanyahu. He said he was in “an active conversation” with the city’s Law Department about the matter.

“Whatever the law allows me to do in New York City, that’s what we will do, but we won’t be writing our own laws to that end,” Mr. Mamdani added.

. . . Legal experts have cast doubt on the legality of a New York City mayor having the Israeli leader arrested. The United States is not a party to the International Criminal Court and does not recognize its authority; the Trump administration recently announced a campaign to “dismantle” it.

Three days later, as also reported by the Times, the answer from Mamdani’s legal experts came: Mamdani called Netanyahu a “war criminal” and “architect of a horrific genocide against the Palestinian people”, but he said he lacked “independent legal authority to enforce this warrant.”

Implying that only Washington, DC, has such authority, he called vainly on federal law enforcement authorities to arrest the Israeli Prime Minister.

According to the mainstream narrative, state and local law enforcement authorities simply have no authority to execute the ICC’s arrest warrant because (a) the US is not a party to the Rome Statute and (b) a US law prohibits state and local authorities from cooperating with ICC investigations.

But it’s not that simple, and the argument can be made that state authorities not only can arrest Netanyahu but are legally obligated to do so under the US Constitution.

The ICC’s Arrest Warrant for Benjamin Netanyahu

The question of whether any of the states in the federal union can execute an ICC arrest warrant arises from a warrant issued for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in relation to Israel’s systematic assault on the civilian population and infrastructure of Gaza ongoing since October 7, 2023.

On that day, the armed Palestinian group Hamas, which since 2006 has served as governing authority in Gaza, executed “Operation Al Aqsa Flood”, breaching the security fence enclosing the Gaza concentration camp and attacking soldiers and civilians in Israel.

During the Hamas-led operation, an estimated 1,189 people were killed, of whom 379 were members of Israel’s security forces and 810 were civilians.

According to a UN independent commission of inquiry, at least 14 of the Israeli civilians are known to have been killed by the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF).

According to separate investigations by the Israeli newspapers Yedioth Ahronoth and Haaretz, a variation of the IDF’s “Hannibal Directive” was implemented on 10/7, which refers a military doctrine of sacrificing its own citizens to prevent Israelis from being taken into captivity.

In addition to those killed, 251 people were kidnapped and taken hostage to Gaza, including 226 civilians and 25 members of the Israeli security forces. The count of civilian hostages included 41 non-Israeli foreign nationals.

The ICC also issued arrest warrants for three Hamas officials subsequently killed by Israeli forces. On the same charges as Netanyahu, the ICC also issued a warrant for former Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, who in the days following 10/7 openly declared Israel’s intention to deprive the civilian population of Gaza of goods and services necessary for their survival and to “eliminate everything” in Gaza.

Netanyahu justified targeting the civilian population and infrastructure on the ground that the Jews were in a “struggle between the children of light and the children of darkness” while invoking the biblical account of the Israelites’ genocide of the Amalek tribe, repeatedly comparing the Palestinians to the Amalekites.

The reported death toll among Palestinians as of July 15, 2026, derived from reliable Gaza Health Ministry data, is 73,246, of whom 52% have been children, women, and elderly. That includes only deaths caused directly by the violence, not indirect mortality such as from malnutrition or infectious diseases. It also excludes the at least 11,000 missing persons presumed dead under the rubble.

Consequently, the reported death toll represents a significant underestimate.

In a letter published in British medical journal The Lancet in July 2024, researchers including Martin McKee, a member of the editorial board of the Israel Journal of Health Policy Research and of the International Advisory Committee of the Israel National Institute for Health Policy Research, reported “a conservative estimate” of four indirect deaths for each of the 37,396 casualties then reported. The result of 186,000 deaths, the authors observed, “would translate to 7.9% of the total population in the Gaza Strip.”

An analysis in The Lancet in February 2025 estimated that the official data underreported traumatic injury mortality by 41%, indicating “an exceptionally high mortality rate in the Gaza Strip”.

A study in The Lancet in January 2025 estimated “a life expectancy loss of more than 30 years during the first 12 months of the war, nearly halving prewar levels. Actual losses are likely to be higher.”

According to an estimate published in The Lancet in November 2025, through the end of July of that year, over 3 million life-years had been lost in Gaza, with most life-years lost being “among civilians, even under the relaxed definition of a supposed combatant involving all men and boys” aged 15–44 years.

As stated in an analysis of the data published in the journal Frontiers in Public Health in June 2024, “In the 2023 conflict, there is robust evidence for civilians being an object of war, with civilians identified as the primary focus of the conflict.”

In February 2024, barely four months into Israel’s operation, a policy brief from the UN Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia (ESCWA) observed from the official underestimate that over 1% of the Gaza population had already been killed, including at least “one Gazan child in every 85”.

The brief further noted,

No other armed conflict in the twenty-first century has experienced such a devastating impact on a population in such a short timeframe. To find a 100-day period with greater bloodshed, it is necessary to go back to the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda.

In addition to indiscriminate attacks on civilians, Israel’s deliberately disproportionate use of force has included the systematic targeting of Gaza’s civilian infrastructure, including its health care system.

In the first 24 hours of Israel’s assault, according to an account in the Israeli newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth, when IDF Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi informed Netanyahu that 1,500 targets had been struck, the Prime Minister demanded to know, “Why not 5,000?”

“We don’t have 5,000 approved targets,” Halevi explained.

“I don’t care about targets,” Netanyahu angrily retorted. “Bring down houses; bomb with everything we have.”

On May 11, 2025, in accordance with Donald Trump’s own declared plan to empty Gaza it of its Palestinian residents, Netanyahu told a committee of the Knesset, Israel’s legislative branch, that humanitarian aid would be denied to any displaced Palestinians who attempted to return home.

For good measure, Netanyahu explained, “We are destroying more and more homes, and Gazans have nowhere to return to.”

The Israeli policy of rendering Gaza uninhabitable is visible on the map. A damage assessment report from the UN, European Union, and the World Bank estimated that recovery and reconstruction costs over the next decade would total over $71 billion and that human development in Gaza had been set back by a staggering 77 years.

The Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court

The Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court was adopted on July 17, 1998, which date annually is recognized as “International Justice Day”, and entered into force on July 1, 2002. As of this writing, there are 125 state parties to the Rome Statute.

Like the Charter of the United Nations, the Rome Statute is among the treaties comprising the formal body of international law. Unlike the UN Charter, state parties to the Rome Statute do not include the US and Israel.

As stated in Article 5 of the Rome Statute, the crimes within the jurisdiction of the ICC are genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes, and the crime of aggression.

• The crime of “aggression” is prohibited under the UN Charter and means any use of force in international relations other than for purposes of self-defense against an armed attack. (Aggression was defined at Nuremberg as “the supreme international crime, differing from other war crimes only in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole.”)
• “War crimes” means grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions and other “serious violations of the laws and customs applicable in international armed conflict, within the established framework of international law”.
• “Crimes against humanity” include murder, extermination, forcible transfer of population, and apartheid.
• The Rome Statute’s definition of “genocide” is identical to that contained in the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (“Genocide Convention”), the signatories of which include both the US and Israel.

Unlike the ICJ, the ICC is not an organ of the UN; however, the Rome Statute establishes a direction relationship between the ICC and UN, which was approved by the UN in General Assembly Resolution 58/318 on September 13, 2004, and entered into force on October 4 of that year.

As explained by the UN Office of Legal Affairs,

The Agreement creates a general framework for cooperation between all units and entities of the United Nations, including its offices, funds and programmes, on the one hand, and the International Criminal Court, including the Secretariat of the Assembly of States Parties (ASP) to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, on the other.

As stated in the Rome Statute, the purpose of the ICC is “to exercise its jurisdiction over persons for the most serious crimes of international concern” in a manner that is “complementary to national criminal jurisdictions.”

Under the agreement, the UN recognizes the ICC “as an independent permanent judicial institution”, the ICC recognizes the responsibilities of the UN under its Charter, and the UN and ICC “respect each other’s status and mandate.”

Consequently, no act of the ICC can require the UN organization or member states to abrogate the UN’s founding principles as defined by its Charter. Were the ICC to act with prejudice toward Charter principles, the UN organization, its member states, or citizens of member states, no legal obligation could arise for the organization or its member states to comply.

Like the US, Israel is not a party to the Rome Statute; however, the internationally recognized state of Palestine is, which gives the ICC jurisdiction over serious crimes occurring in the Israeli-occupied Palestinian territories of the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip.

The ICC’s arrest warrant for Netanyahu and Gallant perfectly accords with the stated purpose of the UN to “maintain international peace and security” by collective measures that are “in conformity with the principles of justice and international law”.

While the warrant does not explicitly refer to the crime of genocide, it does seek Netanyahu’s arrest for inherently overlapping crimes.

The Prime Minister and his former Defense Minister stand accused of having “committed the war crime of using starvation as a method of warfare and crimes against humanity of murder, persecution, and other inhumane acts”, as well as “the war crime of intentionally directing attacks against civilians as a superior.”

In sum, the ICC’s arrest warrant for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza is in accordance with international law, including the Rome Statute, the UN Charter, and the body of treaties comprising international humanitarian law governing the military conduct of states.

Complying with the arrest warrant does not require a state’s accession to the Rome Statute but is arguably required by the US to fulfill its legal obligations under other international treaties—including the Genocide Convention.

The 1948 Genocide Convention

As noted, the ICC arrest warrant doesn’t include the legal term “genocide”, but war crimes and crimes against humanity perpetrated in Gaza with the specific intent to destroy the Palestinians in Gaza as a people, does amount to genocide.

That is, war crimes and crimes against humanity may not rise to the level of a “genocide”, but a genocide is characterized by systematic perpetration of war crimes and crimes against humanity, including the use of starvation as a weapon of war.

The 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide defines “genocide” as follows:

In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:

(a) Killing members of the group;

(b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;

(c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;

(d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;

(e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.

The definition of “genocide” under the Rome Statute, as mentioned, is identical.

The Genocide Convention does not merely prohibit states from perpetrating or acting complicitly in a genocide; it also requires all states to act to prevent genocide and to punish individuals responsible for inciting, conspiring, attempting, or perpetrating genocidal acts.

Hence, if a state can act to prevent or punish genocidal acts but does not, it constitutes a violation of the Genocide Convention.

The Convention requires state parties to enact legislation to give effect to its provisions.

On November 4, 1988, US President Ronald Reagan signed into law the Genocide Convention Implementation Act of 1987, or the “Proxmire Act”, which is codified in part at US Code Title 18, Section 1091.

The law requires the United States to punish individuals responsible for genocidal acts, incitement, or attempt and conspiracy to commit genocide. It specifically states that the United States have jurisdiction over the any such offense “committed in whole or in part within the United States” or if “the alleged offender is . . . present in the United States”, “regardless of where the offense is committed”.

Thus, federal law requires the United States to hold accountable any foreign nationals who have incited, conspired, attempted, or committed acts with “the specific intent to destroy, in whole or in substantial part, a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group as such”.

The Genocide Convention also provides that genocidal acts “shall not be considered as political crimes for the purpose of extradition”, and parties “pledge themselves in such cases to grant extradition in accordance with their laws and treaties in force.”

The fact that the US government is not a party to the Rome Statute means that it is not obligated to comply with an arrest warrant for an accused offender of international humanitarian law; but neither are the United States prohibited from cooperating with the ICC to hold Netanyahu accountable for war crimes and crimes against humanity.

On the contrary, the legal obligation of all states in the Union is to take action to bring Netanyahu to justice, and cooperating with the ICC’s investigation is a clear means by which federal or state authorities can—and arguably must—fulfill that legal obligation.

The Genocide Case Against Israel at the ICJ

The United States is a party to the UN Charter, which established the International Court of Justice, and the US thus officially recognizes the ICJ as the world’s highest authority on questions of interpretation and applicability of international law to interstate conflicts.

On December 29, 2023, the government of South Africa, in compliance with its own legal obligation arising under the treaty to act to stop genocide, filed an application at the ICJ to institute proceedings against Israel for violating the 1948 Genocide Convention.

On January 11, 2024, South Africa requested the ICJ to issue provisional measures to immediately protect the Palestinians in Gaza from irreparable harm to their right not to be subjected to acts of genocide.

The argument presented was that the Court did not need to issue a final judgment that Israel was guilty of genocide before it could act to protect Palestinians’ rights; it sufficed that a plausible case had been made that Israel was committing genocidal acts.

Two weeks later, on January 26, the ICJ acceded to South Africa’s request and issued provisional measures, ordering Israel to take concrete actions to demonstrate its compliance with the Genocide Convention, including cessation of indiscriminate attacks on civilians and civilian infrastructure and ending its restrictions on humanitarian aid into Gaza—an openly declared policy of depriving Palestinians of food and other goods essential for their survival.

In sum, the ICJ concurred with South Africa that it needn’t determine that Israel was committing genocide to act to protect Palestinian civilians; it sufficed that a plausible case had been made that their right to be protected from genocidal acts under the Convention was at risk of irreparable harm.

Of course, we do not need to await the ICJ’s final judgment to know that Israel has perpetrated genocide in Gaza. We can observe for ourselves that the definition of genocide has been met.

The US Government’s Complicity in the Gaza Genocide

A critical factor in the US government’s efforts to protect Israeli officials from accountability for serious breaches of international law is the bipartisan support that Israel’s genocide has received across Democratic and Republican administrations.

As I documented extensively in my articles “US Humanitarian Aid to Gaza Is a Cynical PR Ploy” and “The Significance of the ICC’s Arrest Warrant for Netanyahu”, the Biden administration was repeatedly warned of genocidal acts being carried out by Israel with openly genocidal intent, yet it persisted in providing material support for Israel’s actions, including 2,000-pound bombs used in densely populated areas.

The Biden administration also provided Israel with diplomatic cover to continue its genocide by using the US veto power in the UN Security Council to block ceasefire measures, despite the unanimous outcry from humanitarian organizations that a ceasefire was necessary to avert mass civilian death in Gaza.

The Biden administration expressed rhetorical concern for the lives and wellbeing of Palestinian civilians in Gaza while hypocritically contradicting its empty words with persistent material and diplomatic support for the genocide, as well as diplomatic cover for Israel’s blockade of humanitarian aid.

This included cynical public relations ploys to manipulate Americans into believing that the US and Israel were taking actions to help Palestinian civilians, even though those very efforts—such as airdropping goods or building a floating pier—were aimed at legitimizing Israel’s efforts to block the delivery and distribution of international humanitarian aid into Gaza by truck through land crossings.

As I additionally documented in my articles “How Trump Approved the Resumption of Israel’s Gaza Genocide”, “Israel Advances US-Backed Plan to Ethnically Cleanse Gaza”, and “Should Trump Be Celebrated for the Gaza Ceasefire?”, the subsequent Republican administration not only continued but escalated the US government’s support for the Gaza genocide.

In fact, the day before Trump’ inauguration, a ceasefire was implemented between Israel and Hamas, and despite Hamas’s adherence to the agreement, Trump literally encouraged Israel to refuse to uphold its obligations under the ceasefire and instead issue an ultimatum to Hamas to accept new terms—and if Hamas refused to renegotiate, Israel had Trump’s blessing to violate the existing ceasefire and resume its genocidal assault on Gaza.

That included Trump’s explicit support for permanently removing Gaza’s civilian population either through forced expulsion or mass death.

Consequently, the US federal government has itself perpetrated grave violations of the 1948 Geocide Convention for not only failing to utilize its great capacity to prevent Israel’s genocide in Gaza but also intentionally participating with Israel in perpetration of the crime.

It is therefore not accurate to describe an “Israeli” genocide in Gaza; it’s a US-Israeli genocide that the world has been witnessing.

Why US Government Officials Oppose the ICC

Bill Clinton signed the Rome Statute on December 31, 2000, but the George W. Bush administration on May 6, 2002, declared that “the United States does not intend to become a party to the treaty”, and it was never ratified by the Senate as required by the Constitution.

The Bush administration’s objection arose from its fear that US officials could be prosecuted for war crimes by the ICC—which was understandable, given the conduct of US military and intelligence officers and political leaders during the war in Afghanistan, as well as the declared intention to wage war on Iraq.

The Bush administration proceeded to perpetrate the crime of aggression in Iraq starting on March 19, 2003, which it attempted to justify on a pretext of lies about Iraq manufacturing and stockpiling weapons of mass destruction (WMD), including efforts to build a nuclear weapon.

Among other claims made to manufacture consent for the crime under the government’s deliberate campaign of deception, Americans were instilled with the fear that the proof of Iraq’s efforts could come “in the form of a mushroom cloud.”

The government later admitted what was already public knowledge before the war: that Iraq’s WMD, which it had developed during the 1980s while the US was supporting Saddam Hussein, were destroyed in 1991 under a UN inspections regime, and Iraq never resumed its manufacturing capabilities.

Besides war criminals in Washington protecting themselves, the US has also sought to protect Israeli officials from prosecution, including for the obvious reason that the US government has always maintained a policy of supporting Israel’s crimes against the Palestinians, as documented extensively in my book Obstacle to Peace: The US Role in the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict.

Trump’s Campaign to “Dismantle” the ICC

Given Trump’s own flagrant disregard for the US Constitution and international law, it is unsurprising that his administration has continued to vehemently oppose the purpose and function of the ICC.

As already noted, in February 2025, Trump issued an executive order to sanction the ICC for investigating Israeli leaders and issuing warrants for Netanyahu and Gallant.

The ICC responded with a statement condemning Trump’s order and calling on all 125 parties to the Rome Statute, in addition to “civil society and all nations of the world”, to “stand united for justice and fundamental human rights.”

On July 9, 2025, the State Department acted on Trump’s order by imposing sanctions also on Francesca Albanese, the UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967, for having “directly engaged with the International Criminal Court (ICC) in efforts to investigate, arrest, detain, or prosecute nationals of the United States or Israel”.

(On May 13, 2026, a federal judge temporarily blocked the sanctions against Albanese on the grounds that punishing her for making recommendations to the ICC violated her right to free speech.)

Albanese’s chief offense was fulfilling her mandate from the UN Human Rights Council to investigate Israel’s violations of international humanitarian law in Gaza and the West Bank. In March 2024, the UN issued her report titled “Anatomy of a Genocide”, which was followed in June 2025 by a report titled “From economy of occupation to economy of genocide”.

Other UN independent experts condemned the US government’s persecution of Albanese for discharging her mandate. In a statement, dozens of independent experts described it as “a direct attack on the integrity of the UN human rights system.”

The targeting of Albanese was likewise condemned by international human rights organizations. The international justice director at Human Rights Watch, Liz Evenson, issued the statement:

The US government’s decision to sanction Albanese for seeking justice through the International Criminal Court is actually all about silencing a UN expert for doing her job, speaking truth about Israeli violations against Palestinians and calling on governments and corporations not to be complicit. The United States is working to dismantle the norms and institutions on which survivors of grave abuses rely. UN and ICC member countries should strongly resist the US government’s shameless efforts to block justice for the world’s worst crimes and condemn the outrageous sanctions on Albanese.

Albanese’s report on the “economy of genocide” mentioned numerous US corporations that have enabled Israel’s violations of human rights and international humanitarian law, including:

• Lockheed Martin
• Palantir Technologies
• Caterpillar
• Microsoft
• Alphabet/Google
• Amazon
• IBM
• Hewlett Packard
• Chevron
• Airbnb
• BlackRock
• Vanguard

More recently, on July 13, 2026, the State Department announced what it called “a sweeping campaign to dismantle the threat posed by the International Criminal Court to U.S. sovereignty.”

The statement claimed the ICC “poses an intolerable threat to U.S. sovereignty” by claiming “authority to prosecute and even imprison American servicemen and officials operating on behalf of America’s national interest”, which “Americans never signed up for”.

In truth, what members of the US armed forces never signed up for are Washington’s wars of aggression and other violations of international law that are directly contrary to the interests of the American people.

The State Department complains that “The ICC previously opened an investigation into U.S. servicemen and intelligence officers and has since refused to close these cases.”

The reference is to an investigation into atrocity crimes committed in Afghanistan in the context of the US military operations there following the events of September 11, 2001.

The ICC Prosecutor’s request in November 2017 for authorization of the investigation stated there were reasonable grounds to believe that crimes were committed by both the Taliban and members of the US-backed Afghan security forces.

Additionally, there was “a reasonable basis” to believe that members of the US armed forces and officers of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) “committed acts of torture, cruel treatment, outrages upon personal dignity, rape and sexual violence against conflict-related detainees in Afghanistan and other locations, principally in the 2003-2004 period.”

A US Senate report released in December 2014 documented how protestations against the CIA’s torture program from within the agency were overruled by higher-ups, including by consecutive CIA directors: George Tenet, Porter Goss, and Michael Hayden.

The ICC’s investigation was dropped in March 2020 at the request of the Afghanistan government to defer the matter to its national authorities under the Rome Statute’s “principle of complementarity”.

When the US State Department says that the ICC has “refused to close” an investigation into US military and intelligence officers, it means that the ICC Prosecutor requested to resume the investigation into alleged atrocity crimes within the context of the war in Afghanistan after the Taliban seized power in Kabul in August 2021.

The Prosecutor issued this request on the ground that “there is no longer the prospect of genuine and effective domestic investigations into Article 5 crimes within Afghanistan.”

Citing “the limited resources available” to his office, the Prosecutor also declared his intention to focus on the alleged crimes of the Taliban and Islamic State—not those committed by US-backed Afghan security forces or US military and intelligence personnel.

In approving the request in October 2022, the ICC noted the concerns expressed by certain victims that this narrow focus “may result in the Prosecution overlooking crimes allegedly committed by others, including members of armed forces or security and intelligence services of non-State parties”—namely, officers of the US military and CIA responsible for torturing detainees in its so-called “global war on terrorism”.

The Trump administration’s campaign to “dismantle” the supposed “threat” posed by the ICC, including “sanctions against the ICC and affiliated organizations”, is clearly intended to protect high-level officials in both the US and Israeli governments from being prosecuted for serious crimes occurring in territories under the ICC’s jurisdiction—such as the US-Israeli genocide in Gaza.

Since it wouldn’t do to confess their true motive for opposing the Rome Statute’s purpose, war criminals in Washington must attribute this policy to a phantom menace. Hence, the Trump administration describes the ICC as an “unaccountable global arbiter” that is “positioning itself above and beyond the nation state as a supranational enforcement arm of a globalist bureaucracy empowered to persecute American servicemen and officials at will.”

The Executive Branch of the US federal government, of course, has no legislative authority, and any “orders” issued by the president that are contrary to the US Constitution are illegal, null and void—and state law enforcement authorities are not only free but obligated to simply ignore or otherwise act to nullify them.

The Supreme Law of the Land

Under the US Constitution, Article I, Section 8, Congress has authority to define and punish offences against “the Law of Nations”. Section 10 provides that “No state shall enter into any Treaty, Alliance, or Confederation” or “enter into any Agreement or Compact with another State, or with a foreign Power” without the consent of Congress.

Under Article II, Section 2, the President is granted power, “with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, to make Treaties”.

Article VI states, “This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land . . . .”

Consequently, the UN Charter, the Geneva Conventions, the Genocide Convention, and other relevant treaties to which the US is a party are “the supreme Law of the Land”, and US government actions taken in contravention to its treaty obligations are ipso facto unconstitutional.

The “American Servicemember’s Protection Act”

In its reporting on New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s reneged vow to have the NYPD arrest Benjamin Netanyahu, the New York Times cited “legal experts” opining that such an action would likely violate federal law.

The reference is to the “American Servicemember’s Protection Act of 2002”, which was signed into law by President George W. Bush. It ostensibly prohibits federal, state, and local agencies from cooperating with ICC investigations, as codified in US Code, Title 22, Section 7423.

Superficially, US opposition to the Rome Statute is grounded in a desire to preserve US sovereignty over its own affairs. This pretense, however, serves as only a thin veil masking the true reasons for the US government’s outright hostility toward the ICC.

Washington’s opposition to the ICC is sufficiently explained by a desire to shield US government officials from prosecution for committing serious violations of international law.

Under the “Servicemember’s Protection Act”, this federal policy is characterized as necessary to protect US sovereignty on the grounds that

Any American prosecuted by the International Criminal Court will, under the Rome Statute, be denied procedural protections to which all Americans are entitled under the Bill of Rights to the United States Constitution, such as the right to trial by jury.

However, that is untrue.

First, the federal government simply has no authority to enter the states into a treaty that abrogates the US Constitution. If a treaty is constitutionally ratified, then it cannot abrogate the rights of American citizens that are guaranteed under the Constitution; and if ratification of a treaty is unconstitutional, then it is not legally binding on the United States or its citizens.

Consequently, were the US to ratify the Rome Statute, it could only be validly interpreted as consistent with and not in contravention to the US Constitution, including the right of American citizens to a jury trial.

Second, the Rome Statute does not purport to infringe on member states’ sovereignty on matters of legal jurisdiction. On the contrary, its preambulatory section explicitly emphasizes that the ICC “shall be complementary to national criminal jurisdictions”.

Article 17 of the Rome Statute specifies that a case is inadmissible if a state party having jurisdiction over alleged offenders conducts its own investigation genuinely aiming to seek justice for any of the serious international crimes specified in Article 5.

Contrary to the characterization of the “Servicemember’s Protection Act”, therefore, accession to the Rome Statute does not conflict with the US Constitution’s requirement for a jury trial.

A further corollary is that the federal government’s policy of opposing the purpose and function of the ICC isn’t about preserving the sovereignty of the United States.

The primary aim of the 2002 “Servicemember’s Protection Act” is to shield the military commanders or intelligence officers who give the orders and the political leaders in Washington who are ultimately responsible for serious breaches of international law—such as the defense secretaries, CIA directors, and Commanders-in-Chief who unconstitutionally order American youths to participate in their violations of international law, including human rights abuses and wars of aggression.

Examples of such wars include Bush’s war on Iraq, waged in part with the aim of creating conditions in the Middle East amenable to Israel’s efforts to wipe Palestine off the map, and Trump’s war on Iran, jointly waged with Israel with the same aim, as well as to punish the Iranian people for their government’s refusal to bend the knee to Washington.

The US federal government and Israel are frequent partners in crime. Little wonder, then, that Washington has so greatly focused on protecting the military and political leadership of Israel.

The 2002 Act makes a fair point about the ICC being able to prosecute American citizens if they are accused of perpetrating serious crimes within the jurisdiction of a state party to the Rome Statute; but, then, the simple solution to this concern is for the US federal government to just stop going around the world illegally bombing, invading, and otherwise committing crimes in other countries.

The 2002 Act explicitly states Washington’s reasonable concern that if the Senate were to ratify the Rome Statute, “the President and other senior elected and appointed officials of the United States Government may be prosecuted by the International Criminal Court.”

Naturally, the war criminals in Washington wish not to be held accountable for serious violations of international law.

Illustrating Washington’s glaring hypocrisy, 22 USC Section 7423 also specifically allows “assistance to the International Criminal Court” with investigations related to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

The message to the world from Washington is, “International law is for thee, not for me.”

In sum, the transparent intent of the “American Servicemember’s Protection Act” is to protect US government officials from being held accountable for international crimes over which the ICC has jurisdiction.

In other words, the Act is intended to abrogate the US government’s legal obligations under existing treaties comprising the supreme Law of the Land.

To the extent that Section 7423 of the law is intended or serves to abrogate the US government’s legal obligations under existing treaties comprising the supreme Law of the Land, it is inherently unconstitutional.

Additionally, Section 7433 of 22 USC, specifically states,

Nothing in this subchapter shall prohibit the United States from rendering assistance to international efforts to bring to justice . . . foreign nationals accused of genocide, war crimes or crimes against humanity . . . .

In sum, Congress has no authority to order the states to abrogate the supreme Law of the Land, and the law cannot be logically interpreted as prohibiting state law enforcement authorities from cooperating with the ICC’s effort to bring Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to justice.

State vs. Federal Authority

Under the Constitution of the United States, the states are sovereign. Within each state, the people are sovereign.

The federal government can legally exercise those powers explicitly delegated to it by the states, as expressly enumerated in the Constitution.

Although already implicitly understood in the original Constitution, out of an abundance of caution, the framers saw fit to add a Bill of Rights, the Tenth Amendment of which explicitly reserves all powers not expressly delegated to the federal government “to the States respectively, or to the people.”

While the authority to make treaties is granted exclusively to the federal government, this poses no obstacle to state law enforcement authorities cooperating with an ICC investigation by arresting a foreign government official on a warrant for serious international crimes.

Such cooperation by non-member states is invited by the Rome Statute and would not equate to an exercise of treaty-making power. Nor would it violate the sovereignty of the state or the people of the state.

The federal government simply has no authority to command the states not to so cooperate. There is no expressly delegated power under which it may dictate a policy decision to state law enforcement authorities to obstruct the efforts of the ICC to seek justice for the victims of serious international crimes.

In the case of the Israeli Prime Minister, notwithstanding the non-accession to the Rome Statute, any such command also directly contravenes the United States’ legal obligations under the Genocide Convention.

The US Supreme Court has upheld the “anticommandeering” principle of the US Constitution whereby “Congress cannot issue direct orders to state legislatures” (Murphy v. NCAA); or if “it is the whole object of the [federal] law to direct the functioning of the state executive”, which extends to law enforcement officers, then it is “the very principle of separate state sovereignty that such a law offends” (Printz v. United States).

As the Court has observed,

[T]he Constitution protects us from our own best intentions: It divides power among sovereigns and among branches of government precisely so that we may resist the temptation to concentrate power in one location as an expedient solution to the crisis of the day. [New York v. United States]

Yet commandeering the authority of state law enforcement authorities is precisely what Congress intended to do by prohibiting cooperation with ICC investigations in the “American Servicemembers’ Protection Act” (22 USC, Section 7423).

Obviously, the federal government has been given no authority in the US Constitution to order state or local law enforcement authorities to obstruct justice.

To the extent that the “American Servicemembers’ Protection Act” is intended to circumvent or abrogate the US government’s legal obligations under the supreme Law of the Land, including the Geneva Conventions, the UN Charter, and the Genocide Convention, state authorities have not only a right but a duty to effectively nullify it.

Specifically, the duty of the United States to prevent and punish the crime of genocide is consistent with executing the ICC’s arrest warrant for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Failing to make the arrest is inconsistent with that legal obligation.

The US federal government’s own violation of the Genocide Convention creates both a legal and moral imperative for any state law enforcement authorities to act to fulfill the Law of the Land by making the arrest.

It’s unfortunate, in this respect, that New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani proved to be just another politician making a campaign promise he never seriously intended to keep. The government lawyers can always be trusted to get politicians an escape route from their promises, once in office.

To conclude, it’s worth reiterating the ICC’s call for “civil society and all nations of the world” to “stand united for justice and fundamental human rights.”

That right and duty, after all, is reserved to the states—and to the people of the states.

Appendix A: Expert Conclusions of Israeli Genocide in Gaza

Numerous organizations and independent experts have concluded that Israel’s systematic assault on the civilian population and infrastructure of Gaza has fulfilled the definition of “genocide” under the Genocide Convention and Rome Statute, including the following:

• The Lemkin Institute for Genocide Prevention and Human Security
• International Association of Genocide Scholars
• University Network for Human Rights
• Center for Constitutional Rights
• European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights
• International Federation for Human Rights
• World Peace Foundation
• Human Rights Watch
• Amnesty International
• Medicines Sans Frontieres (Doctors Without Borders)
• Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor
• B'Tselem (Israeli human rights organization)
• Physicians for Human Rights–Israel
• UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967, Francesca Alabanese (A/HRC/55/73)
• The UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the occupied Palestinian territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel (A/HRC/60/CRP.3)

Following are select statements or reports wherein scholars or organizations specializing in genocide studies, international humanitarian law, or human rights have warned about genocide in Gaza, including early statements of genocidal intent by Israeli leaders and potential genocidal acts, as well as early or later conclusions that the definition of “genocide” has been met:

• Raz Segal, “A Textbook Case of Genocide”, JewishCurrents, October 13, 2023
• “Urgent Action: Palestinian Human Rights Organisations Call on Third States to Urgently Intervene to Protect the Palestinian People Against Genocide”, Joint Statement, Al-Haq, Al Mezan Center for Human Rights, and Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR), October 13, 2023
• “Urgent call for intervention: Further atrocities must be prevented”, Gisha, October 13, 2023; statement by Israeli human rights organization
• “Public Statement: Scholars Warn of Potential Genocide in Gaza”, Third World Approaches to International Law Review (TWAILR), October 17, 2023; public statement signed by 882 scholars and practitioners of international law, conflict studies, and genocide studies
• “Stop Genocide in Gaza: Statement of the Global Network on the Question of Palestine”, Arab Renaissance for Democracy & Development, October 17, 2023
• “Israel’s Unfolding Crime of Genocide of the Palestinian People & U.S. Failure to Prevent and Complicity in Genocide”, Center for Constitutional Rights, October 18, 2023
• Craig Mokhiber, Director of the New York Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), letter of resignation in protest of genocide in Gaza, October 28, 2023
• “The Situation in Israel and Gaza: Legal Analysis by Eminent Professors”, Legal Action Worldwide (LAW), October 30, 2023
• “Gaza is ‘running out of time’ UN experts warn, demanding a ceasefire to prevent genocide”, UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), November 2, 2023
• “Palestinian human rights organizations call on ICC to issue arrest warrants against Israeli leaders for genocide and incitement to genocide”, Al Mezan Center for Human Rights, November 9, 2023
• Omer Bartov, “What I Believe as a Historian of Genocide”, New York Times, November 10, 2023; see also Omer Bartov and Daniel J. Wakin, “A Genocide Scholar on the Case Against Israel”, New York Times, July 23, 2025
• “Declaration of Dr. John Cox, Dr. Victoria Sanford, and Dr. Barry Trachtenberg”, DEFENSE FOR CHILDREN INTERNATIONAL – PALESTINE, et al. v. JOSEPH R. BIDEN, JR., et al., US District Court for the Northern District of California, November 13, 2023
• “Gaza: UN experts call on international community to prevent genocide against the Palestinian people”, OHCHR, November 16, 2023
• “Twenty thousand Palestinians believed to be killed in Israel’s genocide of Gaza”, Euro-Med Monitor, November 18, 2023
• “Here’s what the mass violence in Gaza looks like to a scholar of genocide”, Los Angeles Times, November 19, 2023
• “The unfolding genocide against the Palestinians must stop immediately”, International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH), December 12, 2023
• “Statement on Why We Call the Israeli Attack on Gaza Genocide”, Lemkin Institute for Genocide Prevention and Human Security, December 29, 2023
• Application Instituting Proceedings by South Africa against Israel for violations of the 1948 Genocide Convention, South Africa v. Israel, International Court of Justice, December 29, 2023
• “Public Statement: Scholars support South Africa’s submission to the International Court of Justice against Israel for violations of the 1948 Genocide Convention”, TWAILR, January 10, 2024; statement signed by 1,090 scholars and practitioners of international law, genocide studies, and international studies
• Oral Argument by South Africa on the Request for the Indication of Provisional Measures, South Africa v. Israel, ICJ, January 11, 2024
• Order of Provisional Measures, South Africa v. Israel, ICJ, January 26, 2024; the ICJ’s order for Israel to take concrete steps demonstrating compliance with the Genocide Convention based on the finding that South Africa had presented a plausible case that Israel was committing genocide
• “Israel/OPT: New evidence of unlawful Israeli attacks in Gaza causing mass civilian casualties amid real risk of genocide”, Amnesty International, February 12, 2024
• UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967, “Anatomy of a Genocide”, UN Human Rights Council, March 25, 2024 (A/HRC/55/73)
• “Genocide in Gaza: Analysis of International Law and Its Application to Israel’s Military Actions Since October 7, 2023”, University Network for Human Rights, May 15, 2024
• “Amnesty International Warns of U.S. Complicity in War Crimes in Gaza”, Amnesty International, July 23, 2024; highlights that the ICJ “found the risk of genocide in Gaza is plausible”
• “$20 Billion Weapons Package to Israel Would Be a Disgrace”, Amnesty International, August 14, 2024; highlights that “Palestinians in the occupied Gaza Strip remain at risk of genocide”
• “Governments’ Brazen Flouting of Arms Trade Treaty Rules Leading to Devastating Loss of Life”, Amnesty International, August 19, 2024; highlights that states have a legal obligation “to prohibit the flow of arms to countries when it is known they would be used for genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes or if it could be used to commit or facilitate serious violations of international human rights or humanitarian law.”
• “Report of the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel”, UN General Assembly, September 11, 2024 (A/79/232); highlights Israel’s “concerted policy to destroy the health-care system of Gaza” and Israel’s failure to comply with the ICJ’s provisional measures to uphold its obligations under the Genocide Convention
• “Six-month update report on the human rights situation in Gaza: 1 November 2023 to 30 April 2024”, OHCHR, November 8, 2024; highlights Israel’s failure to comply with the ICJ’s provisional measures to uphold its obligations under the Genocide Convention
• “Report of the Special Committee to Investigate Israeli Practices Affecting the Human Rights of the Palestinian People and Other Arabs of the Occupied Territories”, UN General Assembly, September 20, 2024 (A/79/363); highlights “serious concerns of breaches of international humanitarian and human rights laws in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including starvation as a weapon of war, the possibility of genocide in Gaza and an apartheid system in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem.”
• “‘You Feel Like You Are Subhuman’: Israel’s Genocide Against Palestinians in Gaza”, Amnesty International, December 5, 2024
• “The ongoing genocide in Gaza: Q&A on the law and recent developments”, European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights, December 10, 2024
• “One year of denouncing the genocide of Palestinians in Gaza”, FIDH, December 12, 2024
• “Prevention of Racial Discrimination, Including Early Warning and Urgent Action Procedure”, Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, December 13, 2024; report noting “the catastrophic level of starvation in Gaza, raising serious concerns about the commission of war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide.”
• “Extermination and Acts of Genocide: Israel Deliberately Depriving Palestinians in Gaza of Water”, Human Rights Watch, December 19, 2024
• “Gaza: Life in a Death Trap”, Medecins Sans Frontieres, December 19, 2024; report emphasizing that “MSF’s firsthand observations align with those of an increasing number of legal experts and organizations, concluding that ethnic cleansing and genocide are taking place in Gaza.”
• “The State of the World’s Human Rights”, Amnesty International, April 28, 2024; report noting that “the world has been made audience to a live-streamed genocide” in Gaza
• “Four Facts about Israel’s Genocide”, Lemkin Institute for Genocide Prevention and Human Security, May 18, 2025
• Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967, “From economy of occupation to economy of genocide”, UN Human Rights Council, June 30, 2025 (A/HRC/59/23)
• “Destructions of Conditions of Life: A Health Analysis of the Gaza Genocide”, Physicians for Human Rights Israel, July 2025
• “Our Genocide”, B’Tselem, July 2025
• Omer Bartov, “I’m a Genocide Scholar. I Know It When I See It”, New York Times, July 15, 2025
• Gideon Levy, “Denying Gaza's Starvation Is No Less Vile Than Denying the Holocaust”, Haaretz, July 27, 2025
• “UN experts call for immediate dismantling of Gaza Humanitarian Foundation”, OHCHR, August 5, 2025; expresses alarm over “leaving a State accused of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity in charge of feeding the population affected by the genocide without oversight and with impunity.”
• “The Architecture of Genocidal Starvation in Gaza, March – August 2025”, Joint Report by Forensic Architecture with the World Peace Foundation, August 22, 2025
• “IAGS Resolution on the Situation in Gaza”, International Association of Genocide Scholars, August 31, 2025; recognizes that “the government of Israel has engaged in systematic and widespread crimes against humanity, war crimes and genocide”
• Independent International Committee of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel, “Legal analysis of the conduct of Israel in Gaza pursuant to the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide”, UN Human Rights Council, September 16, 2025 (A/HRC/60/CRP.3); concludes that Israel has committed genocide in Gaza
• “World Report 2026”, Human Rights Watch, February 4, 2026; highlights “acts of genocide, ethnic cleansing, and crimes against humanity” by Israeli armed forces in Gaza
• UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, “Human rights situation in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and the obligation to ensure accountability and justice”, UN Human Rights Council, February 16, 2026; emphasizes Israel’s failure to comply with the ICJ’s order to fulfill its obligations under the Genocide Convention
• “Gaza genocide”, MSF, March 11, 2026; emphasizes that Israel’s genocide is ongoing despite a ceasefire agreement effective on October 10, 2025

Appendix B: Israel’s Use of Starvation as a Weapon of War

Following are select resources specifically relevant to Israel’s use of starvation as a weapon of war, including statements and reports of international human rights organizations and governmental bodies:

• “A humanitarian disaster in Gaza must be averted”, B’Tselem, October 12, 2023
• “Starvation as weapon of war being used against Gaza civilians”, Oxfam, October 25, 2023
• “Israel is Waging an Extensive War of Starvation against Gaza’s Civilian Population”, Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor, November 5, 2023
• “The U.N. warns that all 2.2 million people in Gaza are at risk of starvation”, New York Times, November 16, 2023
• “The world cannot stand by as starvation is used as a weapon of war in Gaza”, Oxfam, November 19, 2023
• “Deaths by Starvation and Disease May Top Deaths by Bombs as Families Squeezed into Deadly ‘Safe Zones’, Two Months into Gaza Crisis”, Save the Children, December 9, 2023
• “Widespread hunger in the Gaza Strip, and families are becoming increasingly desperate in their search for food”, Joint Statement, Al-Haq, Al Mezan, and The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR), December 14, 2023
• “Israel: Starvation Used as Weapon of War in Gaza”, Human Rights Watch, December 18, 2023
• “GAZA STRIP: Hostilities leave the entire population highly food insecure and at risk of Famine”, Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC), December 21, 2023
• “Israel is starving Gaza”, B’Tselem, January 8, 2024
• “The world must act now to stop the people of Gaza being starved”, Oxfam, January 11, 2024
• “Request for the Indication of Provisional Measures”, International Court of Justice (ICJ), January 26, 2024; an ICJ decision under South Africa v. Israel ordering Israel to take concrete actions to comply with the 1948 Genocide Convention, including a cessation of the policy of strictly limiting the amount of food and other humanitarian aid into Gaza
• “Israel Not Complying with World Court Order in Genocide Case”, Human Rights Watch, February 26, 2024
• “Famine is imminent as 1.1 million people, half of Gaza, experience catastrophic food insecurity”, IPC, March 15, 2024
• “Inflicting Unprecedented Suffering and Destruction: 7 ways the Government of Israel is deliberately blocking and/or undermining the international humanitarian response in the Gaza Strip”, Oxfam, March 15, 2024
• “Israel government continues to block aid response despite ICJ genocide court ruling”, Oxfam, March 17, 2024
• “Gaza: Israel’s Imposed Starvation Deadly for Children”, Human Rights Watch, April 9, 2024
• “Israel is using starvation as a weapon of war in Gaza”, The BMJ, May 7, 2024
• “Gaza: Deep concern for civilians as aid crossings remain shut”, UN News, March 4, 2025
• “Palestine: Israeli authorities must stop collective punishment and use of aid as a tool of war in Gaza”, Medicins Sans Frontiers (MSF, a.k.a., Doctors Without Borders), March 11, 2025
• “Gaza: UN aid teams reject Israel’s ‘deliberate attempt to weaponize aid’”, UN News, May 7, 2025
• “Gaza: UN Child Rights Committee condemns mass starvation of children amid aid blockades”, UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), May 21, 2025
• “Starvation as a weapon of war in Gaza: violation of international law”, The Lancet, June 7, 2025
• “Gazans Are Dying of Starvation”, New York Times, July 24, 2025
• “Starvation Haunts Gaza Hospitals”, New York Times, July 27, 2025
• “Denying Gaza's Starvation Is No Less Vile Than Denying the Holocaust”, Haaretz, July 27, 2025
• “Worst-case scenario of Famine unfolding in the Gaza Strip”, IPC, July 29, 2025
• “Starving civilians in Gaza is lethal, inhumane and degrading, and it must end”, OHCHR, July 30, 2025
• “The Architecture of Genocidal Starvation in Gaza”, joint report of Forensic Architecture and World Peace Foundation, August 8, 2025
• “Malnutrition deaths mark ‘latest in the war on children’ in Gaza”, UN Relief and Works Administration (UNRWA), August 13, 2025
• “Famine is now confirmed in Gaza City”, UNRWA, August 22, 2025
• “Anyone in Gaza City who doesn’t evacuate ‘can die of hunger or surrender,’ Smotrich said to tell IDF chief”, Times of Israel, August 23, 2025
• “Gaza City lifelines collapsing, UN aid agency warns”, UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), September 18, 2025)
• “Gaza's children face genetic harm 'for generations to come' from Israel's genocide”, Middle East Eye, October 7, 2025
• “Data for Denial: The Smokescreen Behind the Starvation of Gaza”, Forum for Regional Thinking at the Van Leer Jerusalem Institute, May 2026; report in Hebrew by Dr. Shmuel Lederman, an Israeli scholar in genocide studies (I have used ChatGPT to generate an English translation)
• “‘The essence of childhood has been destroyed’: Israel’s deliberate targeting of Palestinian children in the Occupied Palestinian Territory since 7 October 2023”, UN Independent Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel, June 18, 2026

Appendix C: Incitement to Genocide by Prominent Israelis

“Right now, one goal: Nakba! A Nakba that will overshadow the Nakba of 48.” — Ariel Kallner, Likud party Knesset Member, in an X post, October 7, 2023; “Nakba” is the Arabic word for “catastrophe” and refers to the ethnic cleansing by which the state of Israel came into existence in 1948

“[We] Need a disproportionate response. . . . If all the captives are not returned immediately, turn the strip into a slaughterhouse. If a hair falls from their head – execute security prisoners. Violate any norm, on the way to victory. . . . And who will tell us something? Russia killing the Ukrainians? China? Or maybe Western Europe that allowed Azerbaijan to ethnically cleanse 100,000 people at night. World War II ended with the USA inflicting a holocaust on Hiroshima, and even before giving the Japanese a chance to digest, dropped another bomb on Nagasaki, while promising that every Japanese city would be destroyed until surrender. The Japanese were no less crazy than the Arabs.” — David Mizrahy Verthaim, Israeli journalist and radio presenter, in an X post, October 7, 2023

“I have ordered a complete siege on the Gaza Strip. There will be no electricity, no food, no fuel. Everything is closed. We are fighting human animals and we are acting accordingly.” — Yoav Gallant, Israeli Defense Minister, October 9, 2023

“I’m not interested in targets. Take down houses, bomb with everything you have.” — Benjamin Netanyahu, angrily responding to Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi saying that the IDF was running out of targets in Gaza , October 9, 2023

“Human animals must be treated as such. There will be no electricity and no water, there will only be destruction. You wanted hell, you will get hell.”— Major General Ghassan Alian, Head of Israel's Coordinator of Government Activities in the [Occupied] Territories (COGAT), October 10, 2023

“We are fighting human animals. . . . Gaza won't return to what it was before. We will eliminate everything.” — Yoav Gallant, October 10, 2023

“[T]he State of Israel has no choice but to make Gaza a place that is temporarily, or permanently, impossible to live in. The translation of such a decision requires ... not to be content with stopping the flow of electricity, diesel and water to Gaza, but to gradually attack targets that provide these essential needs, and if necessary also to block with fire any vehicle passage from the city of Rafah to the north. Creating a severe humanitarian crisis in Gaza is a necessary means to achieve the goal.” — Major General (retired) Giora Eiland, former head of the IDF’s Operation Directorate and Planning Directorate, former head of Israel's National Security Council, and senior research associate at Institute for National Security Studies, October 10, 2023

“Be triumphant and finish them off and don’t leave anyone behind. Erase the memory of them. Erase them, their families, mothers and children. These animals can no longer live. . . . Every Every Jew with a weapon should go out and kill them. If you have an Arab neighbour, don’t wait, go to his home and shoot him. . . . We want to invade, not like before, we want to enter and destroy what’s in front of us, and destroy houses, then destroy the ones after it. With all of our forces complete destruction, enter and destroy. As you can see, we will witness things we’ve never dreamed of. Let them drop bombs on them and erase them.” — Ezra Yachin, 95-year-old IDF reservist and former member of the Jewish terrorist organization Lehi who was involved in the infamous April 1948 Deir Yassin massacre, in a pep talk to “motivate” Israeli soldiers, October 10, 2023

“For years we supplied Gaza with electricity, water and fuel. Instead of saying thank you, they sent thousands of human animals to slaughter, murder, rape and kidnap babies, women and the elderly - that's why we decided to stop the flow of water, electricity and fuel and now their local power station has collapsed and there is no electricity in Gaza. We will continue to tighten the siege until the Hamas threat to Israel and the world is removed. What was will not be.” — Israel Katz, then Israeli Minister of Energy and Infrastructure, later Minister of Foreign Affairs, and currently Minister of Defense, in an X post, October 11, 2023

“It’s an entire nation out there that is responsible. It's not true, this rhetoric about civilians not—not aware, not involved, it's absolutely not true. They could have risen up. They could have fought against that evil regime.” — Isaac Herzog, Israeli President, October 12, 2023

“Israel needs to create a humanitarian crisis in Gaza, compelling tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands to seek refuge in Egypt or the Gulf. . . . The entire population of Gaza will either move to Egypt or move to the Gulf. From our perspective, every building in Gaza known to have Hamas headquarters underneath, including schools and hospitals, is considered a military target. . . . Every vehicle in Gaza is considered a military vehicle transporting combatants. Therefore, there is no vehicular traffic, and it does not matter whether it is transporting water or other critical supplies. . . . It is comparable to the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, which led to the launch of an atomic bomb in Japan. As a result, Gaza will become a place where no human being can exist, and I say this as a means rather than an end.” — Giora Eiland, Ynet, October 12, 2023

“All the civilian population in Gaza is ordered to leave immediately. We will win. They will not receive a drop of water or a single battery until they leave the world.” — Israel Katz, response in an X post to US Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez saying “We cannot starve nearly a million children to death over the horrific actions of Hamas”, October 13, 2023

“We keep saying to flatten Gaza, flatten Gaza, and I think that’s not enough.” — Tzipi Navon, close adviser to and office manager for Sara Netanyahu, wife of the Israeli Prime Minister, October 14, 2023

“This is a struggle between the children of light and the children of darkness, between humanity and the law of the jungle.” — Benjamin Netanyahu, Israeli Prime Minister, remarks to the Knesset, October 16, 2023

“I strongly oppose the opening of the blockade and the introduction of goods into Gaza on humanitarian grounds.” — Israel Katz, in an X post, October 16, 2023

“And the children in Gaza—the children in Gaza have brought this upon themselves!” — Meirav Ben-Ari, female Knesset member, defending the high proportion of children among Palestinian civilian deaths, October 16, 2023

“As long as Hamas does not release the hostages in its hands - the only thing that needs to enter Gaza are hundreds of tons of explosives from the Air Force, not an ounce of humanitarian aid.” — Itamar Ben-Gvir, Israeli National Security Minister, in an X post, October 17, 2023

“I do not equate them with animals because that is an insult to animals.” — Mordechai Kedar, Israeli scholar of Arab culture and lecturer at Bar-Ilan University, in response to a TV interviewer objecting to dehumanizing Palestinians, BBC Arabic, October 24, 2023

“I’m very puzzled by the constant concern, which the world and also Britain is showing for the Palestinian people and is actually showing for these horrible inhuman animals who have done the worst atrocities that this century has seen.” — Dan Gillerman, former Israeli ambassador to UN, October 25, 2023

“Now we need to retaliate with strong vengeance. ... There is one and only one solution, which is to completely destroy Gaza before invading it. And when I talk about destruction, I mean destruction like it was in Dresden and Hiroshima, without a nuclear weapon. I don't recall that Biden or his predecessors, I don't recall that the Americans provided safe humanitarian passageways for the residents of Nagasaki and Hiroshima. On the contrary, they looked for the weakest cities, and over there they dropped their rockets, to make it clear that they were serious. ... Now they have a very high number of deaths, and it will remain that way. But if you do to them like what was done in Dresden, like what the British did, and if you burned everything, and if you threw bombs that penetrate defensive structures, to penetrate Al Shifa Hospital and to destroy the ground from beneath it, without any consequences.” — Moshe Feiglin, former Likud member of Knesset and leader of Zehut party, October 26, 2023

“Do not leave a stone upon a stone in Gaza. Gaza needs to turn to Dresden, yes! Complete incineration. No more hope. We are still in the Oslo [agreements] and still knocking on the roof. This night the air force still knocks on the roof before it bombed a lame tower in a hospital around Al Shifa Hospital instead of flattening all of Gaza. ... Annihilate Gaza now! Now!” — Moshe Feiglin, on Israel’s Channel 14, October 26, 2023

“[F]lee to Jordan in an orderly fashion before we forcefully expel you from our holy lands bequeathed to us by God. . . . You wanted a Nakba like in 1948 and we will bring down on you a big catastrophe soon.”— leaflet delivered by Jewish settlers in the occupied West Bank to Palestinian residents of Deir Istiya, referring to the ethnic cleansing by which the state of Israel was created, as reported by Haaretz, October 27, 2023

“‘Remember what Amalek did to you.’ We remember and we fight. . . . This will be a victory of good over evil, of light over darkness, of life over death.” — Benjamin Netanyahu, October 29, 2023; the Israeli Prime Minister was citing Deuteronomy 25:17, invoking the Israelite’s genocide of the Amalekites, to whom he was comparing the Palestinians:

“Remember what Amalek did to you on the way as you were coming out of Egypt, how he met you on the way and attacked your rear ranks, all the stragglers at your rear, when you were tired and weary; and he did not fear God. Therefore it shall be, when the Lord your God has given you rest from your enemies all around, in the land which the Lord your God is giving you to possess as an inheritance, that you will blot out the remembrance of Amalek from under heaven. You shall not forget.” — Deuteronomy 25:17–19

“Samuel said to Saul, ‘I am the one the LORD sent to anoint you king over his people Israel; so listen now to the message from the LORD. This is what the LORD Almighty says: “I will punish the Amalekites for what they did to Israel when they waylaid them as they came up from Egypt. Now go, attack the Amalekites and totally destroy all that belongs to them. Do not spare them; put to death men and women, children and infants, cattle and sheep, camels and donkeys.”’ . . . Then Saul attacked the Amalekites all the way from Havilah to Shur, near the eastern border of Egypt. He took Agag king of the Amalekites alive, and all his people he totally destroyed with the sword.” — 1 Samuel 15:1-3, 7-8

“Israel does not deal with humanitarian affairs.” — Itamar Ben-Gvir, calling it “a grave mistake” to allow any humanitarian aid into Gaza, October 31, 2023

“Hate the enemy. Hate the monsters. Any vestige of internal bickering is a maddeningly stupid waste of energy. Invest this energy in one thing; Erasing all of Gaza from the face of the earth. That the Gazan monsters will fly to the southern fence and try to enter Egyptian territory. or they will die. … Gaza should be erased. … A vengeful and cruel IDF is needed here. Anything less is immoral.” — Galit Distel Atbaryan, Likud member of the Knesset, in an X post, November 1, 2023

“Hate the enemy. Hate the monsters. Every shred of internal bickering is a crazy, utterly foolish waste of energy. Invest that energy in one thing: Erasing all of Gaza from the face of the earth. Let the Gazan monsters fly to the southern fence and flee into Egyptian territory. Or let them die. And let them die horribly. Gaza must be erased. And fire and pillars of smoke upon the heads of the Nazis in Judea and Samaria. A Jewish wrath that will shake the soil of the world. The IDF is required here—vengeful [sic] and ruthless. Anything less is immoral. Simply immoral.” — Galit Distel Atbaryan, Likud Knesset Member and former Minister of Information, in an X post, November 1, 2023

“What has been will be no more! We shall go out to it in war, we shall pulverize every accursed plot of land from which it came, we shall destroy it and the memory of it … and we shall not return until it is annihilated, and [God] doth render vengeance to his adversaries, and doth make expiation for the land of His people… The Lord will give strength to his people, and He shall guard thy going out and thy coming in, from this time forth and forever. This is our war, today is our turn. Here we are!” — Brig. Gen. David Bar Khalifa, commander of IDF’s 36th Armored Division, in a handwritten battle directive to his troops, as reported by Haaretz, November 2, 2023

“‘Remember what Amalek did to you’. . . . This is the war between the sons of light and the sons of darkness. We will not let up on our mission until the light overcomes the darkness - the good will defeat the extreme evil that threatens us and the entire world.” — Benjamin Netanyahu, in an X post again invoking the genocide of the Amalekites to justify Israel’s systematic assault on the civilian population and infrastructure of Gaza, November 3, 2023

“Fuel must under no circumstances be brought into Gaza. This is not a humanitarian event.” — Bezalel Smotrich, Israeli Finance Minister, on denying fuel necessary to keep hospitals running, November 4, 2023

“Vengeance is a great value. . . . This place will be a fallow land. They will not be able to live here.” — Colonel Erez Eshel, former Deputy Director of Israeli Ministry of Education and Commander of Special Forces Reservists, on Israel’s Channel 14, November 4, 2023

“Whoever returns here, if they return here after, will find scorched earth. No houses, no agriculture, no nothing. They have no future.” — Colonel Yogev Bar-Shesht, deputy head of the Civil Administration under Coordinator of Government Activities in the [Occupied] Territories (COGAT), video interview from inside Gaza, November 4, 2023

“We are now rolling out the Gaza Nakba. . . . Gaza Nakba 2023. That’s how it’ll end.” — Avi Dichter, Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, former Likud party Knesset Member, and former Shin Bet director, November 11, 2023

“[S]top this scandal immediately and prevent the fuel coming into the Strip.” — Bezalel Smotrich, protesting the US-requested decision to allow two diesel tankers per day to into Gaza to support critical water and sewer infrastructure, November 17, 2023

“Now, again, one little note, ‘the non-combatant population in the Gaza Strip’ is really a non-existent term because all of the Gazans voted for the Hamas, and as we have seen on the 7th of October, most of the population in the Gaza Strip are Hamas.” — Rami Igra, former division chief for Mossad, CNN’s Anderson Cooper 360, November 17, 2023; Cooper, for his part, moved on instead of pushing back against the characterization of Palestinian civilians as legitimate targets

“Autumn night falls over the beach of Gaza / Planes are bombing, destruction, destruction / Look the IDF is crossing the line / to annihilate the swastika-bearers / In another year there will be nothing there / And we will safely return to our homes / Within a year we will annihilate everyone / And then we will return to plow our fields” — Israeli children singing in a music video created by PR firm Rosenbaum Communication and published by the Israeli broadcasting company Kan on its website and X, November 19, 2023

“Israel must, therefore, not provide the other side with any capability that prolongs its life. . . . The way to win the war faster and at a lower cost for us requires a system collapse on the other side and not the mere killing of more Hamas fighters. The international community warns us of a humanitarian disaster in Gaza and of severe epidemics. We must not shy away from this, as difficult as that may be. After all, severe epidemics in the south of the Gaza Strip will bring victory closer and reduce casualties among IDF soldiers. And no, this is not about cruelty for cruelty’s sake since we don’t support the suffering of the other side as an end but as a means. . . . But we must not, absolutely must not adopt the American narrative that “permits” us to fight only against Hamas fighters instead of doing the right thing — to fight against the entire opposing system because it is precisely its civil collapse that will bring the end of the war closer. When senior Israeli figures tell the media, “It’s either us or them,” we should clarify the question of who is “them.” “They” are not only Hamas fighters with weapons but also all the “civilian” officials, including hospital administrators and school administrators, and also the entire Gaza population that enthusiastically supported Hamas and cheered on its atrocities on October 7.” — Giora Eiland, Yedioth Ahronoth, November 19, 2023

“I agree with every word of Giora Eiland in this column.” — Bezalel Smotrich, in an X post, referring to Giora Eiland’s article calling for deliberate orchestration of “a humanitarian disaster in Gaza and of severe epidemics”, November 19, 2023

“It's already known for many years that they have in the bunkers that originally was built by Israeli constructors underneath Shifa . . . . I want just to draw your attention, try to think what an American president would have done if certain corner in the northern west part of Mexico, around Tijuana, some 120 square miles were held by a terror organization that reigned over the area and at certain Thanksgiving morning thousands of these -- of his terrorists enter into San Diego and massacred 40,000 Americans. 40,000, that's the equivalent number within 24 hours. I'm totally confident the American president, as a commander of chief, would order to erase Tijuana from Earth. And I could justify it in a way.” — Ehud Barak, former Israeli Prime Minister, CNN, November 20, 2023

“With God and the IDF's help, after we turn Khan Younis into a soccer field—I'm sure there will be international pressure at some point, hopefully after we finish the job, to rehabilitate Gaza and [to think] what needs to be done with Gaza—and then we need to take advantage of that. To take advantage of the destruction that we will wreak upon them, in order [to tell] the countries of the world that each one of them should take a quota, it can be 20,000 or 50,000, [to say] that they too should shoulder the burden in order to allow them to leave. You have to understand, it was hard for them to leave until now, it was complicated to leave Gaza. We need to change our mindset, and let them leave. ... We need 2 million to leave. In all honesty, that's the solution for Gaza.” — Ayelet Shaked, former Knesset Member, former Interior Minister, and former Justice Minister, Channel 13 Israel, November 22, 2023

“I am for the war crimes. [Laughter from the two co-hosts.] I don't care if I am criticized, and I honestly don't care. I am unable to sleep if I do not see houses being destroyed in Gaza. What do I say? More, more, more houses, more buildings—I want to see more of them destroyed. I want there to be nothing for them to return to. In the Torah, it says they used to spread the earth with salt, and they must complain. This is why we cannot reach a solution with them, and that is what war crimes mean to me.” — Shimon Riklin, Israeli journalist, Channel 14 News, December 13, 2023

“There is no such thing as eliminating Hamas. Just as Churchill wasn't about eliminating the Nazi or the German army. The intention, as Churchill said, was that there is no innocent German. He destroyed the city of Dresden and burned all of Dresden, and America did not look for humanitarian aid for Hiroshima and Nagasaki. They burnt all the Japanese children in these cities and hundreds of other cities. We should overturn all the laws and take advantage of the Holocaust we went through and throw out all the laws so that we can achieve a crushing and painful victory, which means three things: occupation, displacement, and settlement.” — Moshe Feiglin, December 26, 2023

“It is clear for everyone today the right-wing parties were right about the Palestinian matter. Today, it's very simple. You're going everywhere, and they tell you, ‘Annihilate them’. The Kibbutzim say, ‘Annihilate them’. Even my attorney's office colleagues, who always disagree with me on everything, they tell me, ‘Moshe, of course we must annihilate all Gazans’. This is words that I've never heard before.” — Moshe Saada, Likud party Knesset Member, Channel 14, January 2, 2024

“Those areas must be destroyed, and one of the things we expose to the world after getting into the areas in Gaza that we try to find all those tunnels and underground metro city that Hamas has built thanks to the great support of Iran, Qatar, the international community generosity, everything turned to be this horrible terror city, one of the things we realize that every school, every mosque, every second house has an access to tunnel, so this is—and of course ammunition.” — Tzipi Hotovely, Israeli ambassador to the UK, arguing for “destroying the whole of Gaza” on a British talk show, January 3, 2024

“We'll do what's best for Israel: facilitating the relocation of hundreds of thousands from Gaza will allow those in the Israeli Gaza border communities to return home and live securely while safeguarding the IDF soldiers.” — Itamar Ben-Gvir, Israel’s National Security Minister, advocating ethnic cleansing in Gaza, January 7, 2024

“These people there deserve death, a hard death, an agonizing death, and instead we see them enjoying on the beach and having fun. We should have seen a lot more revenge there. A lot more rivers of Gazans’ blood.” — Yehuda Shlezinger, Israeli journalist, reacting to pictures of Palestinians on a beach in Gaza on Israel’s Channel 12, quoted in the New York Times, May 16, 2024

“You want to turn Gaza into the Hebrew Gaza. Unequivocally, show that it represents the deepest Islamo-Nazism. How did Hitler say with his brother, "I cannot live in this world if there is one Jew left in it? We cannot live in this country with such a single Nazi Islamo-Nazi people.” — Moshe Feiglin, discussing treatment of Palestinians and invoking Hitler to advocate elimination of all Palestinians in Gaza, on Israel’s Channel 12, June 16, 2024

“We bring in aid because there is no choice. We can’t, in the current global reality, manage a war. Nobody will let us cause 2 million civilians to die of hunger, even though it might be justified and moral, until our hostages are returned.” — Bezalel Smotrich, complaining at a conference about not being able to starve all Palestinians in Gaza to death because of international pressure to allow in humanitarian aid, August 5, 2024

“Our job is to flatten Gaza . . . No one will stop us.” — D9 company of the IDF’s 749 Battalion, September 2024

“Since we already encircled the northern part of Gaza in the past nine or 10 months, what we should do is the following thing to tell all the 300,000 residents who still live in the northern part of Gaza that they have to leave this area and they should be given 10 days to leave through safe corridors that Israel will provide. And after that time, all this area will become to be a military zone. And all the Hamas people will still, though, whether some of them are fighters, some of them are civilians… will have two choices either to surrender or to starve.” —Giora Eiland, advocating ethnic cleansing of northern Gaza and starvation of any Palestinians who try to remain (the so-called “General’s Plan”), quoted in the BBC, October 12, 2024

“You will witness how Jews go to Gaza and Arabs disappear from Gaza. . . . The real borders of greater Israel are between the Euphrates River and the Nile.” — Daniella Weiss, head of the Jewish settler organization Nachala, at an organization conference titled “Preparing to Resettle Gaza”, October 21, 2024

“There is no intention of allowing the residents of the northern Gaza Strip to return to their homes. . . . We received very clear orders. My task is to create a cleansed space.” — Brigadier General Itzik Cohen, commander of the 162nd Division of the IDF, on receiving orders to ethnically cleanse northern Gaza in accordance with the unofficial “General’s Plan”, as quoted in Haaretz, November 10, 2024

“Hamas's announcement should have one real-life response: a massive fire attack on Gaza, from the air and land, alongside a complete halt to humanitarian aid to the Strip, including electricity, fuel, and water, and including the bombing of aid packages that have already been brought in and are in Hamas' hands in Gaza. We must return to war and destroy!” — Itamar Ben-Gvir, in an X post advocating bombing food warehouses in Gaza to starve Palestinians in Gaza, February 10, 2025

“There is no problem in bombing Hamas' food reserves. They need to starve. If there are civilians who fear for their lives, they should go through the emigration plan.” — Amichai Eliyahu, Israeli Heritage Minister, advocating bombing food warehouses in Gaza in accordance with the unofficial “General’s Plan” of forcing Palestinians in Gaza to choose between expulsion or starvation, May 5, 2025

“Gaza will be entirely destroyed.” — Bezalel Smotrich, May 6, 2025

“We are destroying more and more homes, and Gazans have nowhere to return to. The only inevitable outcome will be the wish of Gazans to emigrate outside of the Gaza Strip.” — Benjamin Netanyahu, advocating the unofficial “General’s Plan” of forcing Palestinians in Gaza to choose between expulsion or starvation by delivering aid only to Palestinians agreeing to expulsion, May 11, 2025

“Every child, every baby in Gaza is an enemy. The enemy is not Hamas, and he is not Hamas’s military arm, either, as our Fatah tells us, that we must not hurt Hamasnik unless he is part of the military arm. Every child in Gaza is the enemy. We need to conquer Gaza and settle it and ensure not a single Gazan child remains there. There is no other victory.” — Moshe Feiglin, on Israel’s Channel 14, May 20, 2025

“We ordered you [to carry out] a quick operation. In my opinion, you can besiege them. Whoever doesn’t evacuate, don’t let them. No water, no electricity, they can die of hunger or surrender. This is what we want and you’re capable.” — Bezalel Smotrich, Israeli Finance Minister, speaking to IDF Chief Eyal Zamir at a meeting with Prime Minister Netanyahu, as quoted in the Times of Israel, August 23, 2025

The above are quotations from prominent Israelis inciting genocide in Gaza that I have personally collected. It is not intended as an exhaustive compilation. For more quotes downloadable as an Excel spreadsheet, see the website IsraelQuotes.com.