Israel has been waging war in Gaza since Hamas militants killed around 1,200 Israelis and took another 250 hostage on Oct. 7 last year. Israeli strikes in the Palestinian controlled region have killed at least 35,000 people, according to figures from the Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza which provides separate casualty figures for combatants and civilians.
The death toll has sparked international concern, with South Africa accusing Israel of carrying out genocide in a case being heard by the International Court of Justice, also based in The Hague.
Nadav Shtrauchler, a former campaign strategist for Netanyahu, told POLITICO that Khan’s statement would only help his former boss by forcing opposition politicians and critics to rally to his defense. Most Israelis will view Khan as targeting Israel and not just Netanyahu, he warned. “People don’t see this as something that’s just against Netanyahu — it is against the state and its defense,” he said.
Shtrauchler predicted that the Israeli public’s reaction to Khan’s announcement would mirror its response to efforts by U.S. President Joe Biden and other U.S. Democrats like Chuck Schumer, the Senate majority leader, to cajole Israel’s leadership into committing to a two state-solution for Palestinians.
“The Democrats and the administration tried to force Netanyahu in a certain direction, but it had exactly the opposite result,” he said. While the ICC prosecutor may not have had politics in mind, “the result will be exactly the same: It will strengthen Bibi’s position.”
Relatives of some Israelis still held captive by Hamas in Gaza, who are also active in the Hostages and Missing Families Forum that has been increasingly critical of Netanyahu, applauded the issue of warrants against senior Hamas officials, but recoiled from the “equivalence being drawn between Israel’s leadership and the terrorists of Hamas.”
“Binding Bibi with Sinwar — that’s something that’s very hard for Israelis to swallow,” Ehud Olmert, a former Israeli prime minister and fierce Netanyahu critic, told POLITICO. It will only encourage Israelis to feel more beleaguered, he explained.
“You take a murderer, a killer, a man who sends his guys to butcher innocent Israelis, and you bind him with the prime minister of Israel who’s responsible for a counteroffensive, I mean, this is something that Israelis can’t accept,” Olmert said. “That plays in favor of Netanyahu. Israelis are already saying, ‘Look, they are all anti-Semites. They are all against us.’”
