Justice for Gaza: Pointing the Finger at the Real Villain
When Israel defends itself against attacks, the world cries “genocide” and fixates on the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) doing exactly what its name says: defending the State of Israel. The Jewish state is painted as the villain behind every Palestinian hardship. But when a Palestinian man points the finger at Hamas instead, will the world listen?
Pointing the Finger at Israel
In November 2024, just over a year after Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack ignited the war, the Hague-based International Criminal Court (ICC) issued an arrest warrant for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity. The ICC, an international, independent court that prosecutes individuals for crimes such as war crimes, genocide and crimes against humanity, alleged that Netanyahu intentionally starved the people of Gaza and directed attacks on civilians. The court issued a matching warrant for former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant.
The ruling drew sharply mixed reactions. Then-US President Joe Biden called it “outrageous.” Netanyahu denounced the ruling, calling it “absurd,” “false” and “antisemitic,” also rejecting the authority of the court. Like Israel, the US is not an ICC member state. The Netherlands and Ireland said they would enforce the warrant, while Hungary and France indicated they would not arrest Netanyahu on their soil. The ICC has no police force of its own and depends entirely on member states to carry out its rulings, which is why non-members such as the US, Israel, China and Russia can simply ignore them.
Notably, the court issued warrants that same day for Hamas leaders too, including Mohammed Deif, commander-in-chief of the al-Qassam Brigades, later confirmed killed by the IDF. Warrant requests for Hamas political chief Ismail Haniyeh and Yahya Sinwar, the Hamas leader in Gaza, were withdrawn after both men were killed by Israel.
One reason the ICC and Israel aren’t on equal footing here: under the court’s “complementarity” principle, a case becomes inadmissible if the country with jurisdiction over it is already conducting a genuine investigation on its own. Israel’s judiciary is robust and independent enough to investigate its own soldiers and leaders without outside intervention. The Palestinian Authority holds no comparable power to pursue Hamas for crimes against Israelis or Gazans.
A Palestinian Speaks Out
Then, in December 2025, a Palestinian man from Gaza made history as the first Palestinian to file a complaint with the ICC against Hamas. His lawyers, who kept him unnamed for his safety, submitted a 40-page complaint calling for the investigation of 14 Hamas leaders for crimes against their own people.
The man reportedly lost his wife, children and other family members in the war, and the complaint argues they would still be alive had Hamas not committed war crimes against Gazans themselves.
The war crimes charge includes using civilians as human shields, attacking civilians and civilian objects, willfully causing great suffering, destruction of property, excessive incidental death or injury, attacking protected objects, outrages upon personal dignity, conscripting children and execution without due process. The crimes against humanity charge includes murder, extermination, torture and persecution.
These allegations align with what Israeli officials have argued for years: that Hamas embeds its fighters among civilians and builds tunnels and bases beneath homes, hospitals, mosques and schools—turning its people into human shields.
The Case against Hamas
The complaint names all 14 Hamas leaders. Izz al-Din al-Haddad, identified by Israel as Mohammed Deif’s successor and a key October 7 planner, was reportedly killed in an Israeli airstrike in May 2026. Also named is Khaled Mashal, predecessor to Ismail Haniyeh as chairman of Hamas’s political bureau; Mahmoud al-Zahar, a Hamas co-founder; Mousa Abu Marzook, the group’s first political chairman; and Khalil al-Hayya, who has chaired the political bureau since July 2026. The remaining names on the list: Mohammed Odeh, Muhannad Rajab, Ghazi Hamas, Izzat al-Rishq, Fathi Hamad, Nizar Awadallah, Husam Badran, Zaher Jabarin and Basem Naim, round out the roster of Hamas’s political and military leadership named in the complaint.
This marks the first time the ICC has faced a charge that Hamas committed crimes against its own people.
Elliot Malin, one of the lawyers representing the Gazan man, wrote on X: “Hamas’ purposeful conduct in Gaza has greatly exacerbated the harm against Palestinian civilians. The unnecessary suffering of the Palestinian people must be accounted for and the ICC cannot claim to care about justice if it remains silent on these crimes.”
One of the other attorneys representing the client, Eli Rosenbaum, a former war crimes prosecutor for the US Justice Department, told the Jerusalem Post that “had Hamas’s fighters instead fought in compliance with longstanding international law rather than by hiding behind and underneath Gazan civilian men, women and children, the civilian death toll would undoubtedly have been only a fraction of what it was.”
A Court Gone Silent
So far, the court has not responded or opened any investigation, which may partly come down to leadership turmoil. Chief Prosecutor Karim Khan stepped back from his duties last year amid misconduct allegations involving a staff member, and his deputies have been running the office ever since.
Meanwhile, the court hasn’t been idle when it comes to Israel. In May 2026, Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich announced that the ICC prosecutor had submitted a confidential request for his arrest, reportedly over settlement policy in Judea and Samaria. Judges haven’t granted it, and the court hasn’t confirmed the request. But the pattern speaks for itself: fresh momentum against Israeli officials alongside months of silence on complaints against Hamas.
As Malin told JNS in May: “We don’t stop seeking justice because the court does not want to respond. We will continue kicking on the door until they deliver justice for the victims.”
Whether the ICC ever answers the Palestinian cries against Hamas—and not against Jews—remains to be seen. But one adage seems to explain the silence so far: “No Jews, no news.” If Israel or the Jewish people can’t be blamed for the suffering in Gaza, the world doesn’t want to hear it.
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