The Times of Israel is liveblogging Monday’s events as they happen.
Gantz slams ICC prosecutor decision: A crime of historic proportions
War cabinet minister Benny Gantz slams the decision of International Criminal Court chief prosecutor Karim Khan to seek arrest warrants against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant.
Khan is also seeking warrants against three Hamas leaders — Yahya Sinwar, Mohammed Deif and Ismail Haniyeh.
Gantz says that Israel’s military is complying with international law in its fighting in Gaza and terms the decision “a crime of historic proportions.”
“The State of Israel is waging one of the just wars fought in modern history following a reprehensible massacre perpetrated by terrorist Hamas on the 7th of October,” Gantz says in a statement.
“While Israel fights with one of the strictest moral codes in history, while complying with international law and boasting a robust independent judiciary – drawing parallels between the leaders of a democratic country determined to defend itself from despicable terror to leaders of a bloodthirsty terror organization is a deep distortion of justice and blatant moral bankruptcy,” Gantz says.
“The prosecutor’s position to apply for arrest warrants is in itself a crime of historic proportions to be remembered for generations,” Gantz says.
Israeli official slams ‘hypocritical, embarrassing’ ICC decision to seek arrest warrants for Netanyahu, Gallant
A senior Israeli diplomatic official tells Ynet that the decision by the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court to seek arrest warrants for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for war crimes is “a decision that is hypocritical and embarrassing on an international level.”
The report says that even though the decision was expected, officials in Jerusalem were “shocked” when it came through.
IDF says it hit more than 80 terror sites across Gaza over last day
The Israeli Air Force struck more than 80 targets belonging to terror groups in the Gaza Strip over the past day, the military says.
According to the IDF, the targets included weapon depots, rocket launchers, and buildings used to attack troops, along with cells of gunmen.
The strikes come as IDF ground troops operate across the Gaza Strip.
In Jabaliya in the Strip’s north, the IDF says the 98th Division has been raiding Hamas sites, locating weapons, and killing gunmen in close-quarters combat and by directing airstrikes.
At a UNRWA complex in Jabaliya, troops found a cache of weapons, the IDF says.
In southern Gaza’s Rafah, troops of the 162nd Division are operating in the eastern part of the city. The IDF says one recent airstrike in Rafah amid the battles took out a Palestinian Islamic Jihad commander along with three other operatives.
In central Gaza, the 99th Division continues to hold the Netzarim Corridor. Several buildings used by terror groups to store weapons were shelled by tanks in the area, the military says.
Israeli jets hit Hezbollah cell, weapons depot in southern Lebanon
Israeli fighter jets struck a Hezbollah cell in southern Lebanon’s Mays al-Jabal a short while ago, the military says.
The IDF says artillery forces of the 91st Division spotted the cell at a position used in recent days to launch rockets at Israel.
Earlier, fighter jets hit a weapons depot belonging to Hezbollah in Naqoura, the IDF says.
The military says it identified secondary blasts following the strike, indicating that munitions were stored there.
לפני זמן קצר חטיבת האש של אוגדה 91 זיהתה חוליית מחבלים של ארגון חיזבאללה במרחב מיס אל ג'בל, מטוסי קרב של חיל האוויר תקפו את החולייה. חוליית המחבלים היו בעמדת שיגור ממנה זוהו שיגורים אל עבר הארץ בימים האחרונים>> pic.twitter.com/wuajODTpvq
— צבא ההגנה לישראל (@idfonline) May 20, 2024
ICC prosecutor calls for arrest warrants for Netanyahu, Gallant and 3 Hamas leaders
In an unprecedented and hugely controversial development, chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court Karim Kahn says he has requested arrest warrants from the judges of the court for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant.
Kahn says that the charges are for the crimes of “causing extermination, causing starvation as a method of war including the denial of humanitarian relief supplies, deliberately targeting civilians in conflict.”
Kahn says he is also applying for arrest warrants against Hamas leaders Yahya Sinwar, Mohammad Deif, and Ismail Haniyeh.
“Today we have applied for warrants to the pretrial chamber of the international criminal court in relation to three individuals who are Hamas members,” says Kahn listing Sinwar, Deif and Haniyeh.
He says they would be charged with extermination, murder, hostage taking, rape and sexual assault in detention.
Dancers reinterpret Hamas massacre at Knesset conference on sexual violence
Lawmakers and other participants in a Knesset conference on weaponized sexual violence are shown a so-called “No Silence Fashion show,” in which women dressed to represent the victims of October 7 engage in interpretive dance to highlight the events of that day.
Dancers are dressed as avatars of the grim stages of the massacre, from dance party to rape and hostage taking, with women wearing artificially bloodstained clothes making their way through the parliament’s Negev Hall.
Lawmakers and other participants in a Knesset conference on weaponized sexual violence are shown a so-called "No Silence Fashion show,” in which women dressed to represent the victims of October 7 engage in interpretive dance to highlight the events of that day. pic.twitter.com/qzFgZHj3BB
— Sam Sokol (@SamuelSokol) May 20, 2024
Six pro-Iran fighters said killed in Israeli strikes in Syria
A war monitor says at least six pro-Iran fighters were killed in Israeli strikes in Syria near the Lebanese border, including in an area where Lebanon’s powerful Hezbollah group holds sway.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights says “Israeli strikes targeted two positions of pro-Iran groups in the Homs region,” including “a Hezbollah site in the Qusayr area” near the border where “six Iran-backed fighters were killed.”
The Observatory did not specify their nationalities.
There was no comment from Israel.
BREAKING:
Explosions were heard in the city of Kosair in the Homs, Syria region following an #Israeli airstrike. According to the report there are casualties.#IRan #Raïssi pic.twitter.com/XxBOxgeyvW
— World Wide Update (@Happiningwww) May 20, 2024
Paralympic chief: No reason to bar Israel from games over Gaza war
Wars and conflicts should not influence participation in the Paralympics, which need to convey a message of hope and support, and Israel should not be sanctioned, Andrew Parsons, the head of the International Paralympic Committee (IPC) says.
The IPC said in March that Russian and Belarusian athletes joining the Paris 2024 Paralympics would not be part of their opening ceremony.
Russian and Belarusian athletes cannot take part in team competitions at the July 26-Aug. 11 Olympics and the Aug. 28-Sept. 8 Paralympics, but are allowed to participate as neutrals — without flags or anthems being played.
Israel, however, will fully participate in the Games despite calls to take actions due to the ongoing war in Gaza.
“The situations are different… The Russian and Belarusian Paralympic Committees were suspended because both organizations have breached the (Olympic) constitution,” Parsons tells Reuters 100 days before the start of the Paris Paralympics.
“They used the Olympic movement to promote the war and the invasion of Ukraine.”
Olympic authorities believe Israel should not be penalized.
“In the case of Israel, the Paralympic Committee and even the Palestine Paralympic Committee have not done anything of that nature, so we don’t have any process in place when it comes to suspending those national Paralympic committees,” Parsons explains.
“So far, the two national Paralympic (committees) are in line with our constitution, and we don’t have any suspension process in place targeting those two nations.”
Parsons added the Olympic movement should keep a cool head and promote peace.
“We don’t want to be directed by the conflicts around the world. I think the message is the other way around, that even if there are countries who are in conflict, even in the most difficult and challenging situations, support can still be a beacon of hope,” Parsons says.
At Knesset conference on sexual violence, participants slam silence from women’s groups on Hamas crimes
Addressing a conference in the Knesset on combating sexual violence, Opposition Leader Yair Lapid, slams those who ignore or minimize Hamas’s mass rape of Israeli women and declares that “silence is a crime against women.”
“We came here today to cry out against silence,” he says.
“In Trafalgar Square in London, people who see themselves as liberal, who see themselves as progressive, talk about the rights of terrorists and the reason they justify murder. But when it comes to rape, silence. In Dublin and Madrid, in UCLA, in Berkeley, useful idiots shout from the river to the sea without understanding they are calling for genocide against Jews. They believe everything they see on their phones, but do not believe the horrific testimonies of sexual abuse by Hamas terrorists when it comes to this. Silence.”
He warns: “Throughout history, there has been a conspiracy of silence surrounding sexual violence during war. This is what enabled it… Women are raped, humiliated, murdered, and the world is silent.”
The meeting, convened by MK Shelly Tal Meron of Lapid’s Yesh Atid party, seeks to establish a “Global Women’s Coalition Against Gender Based Violence as a Weapon of War.”
Speaking at the conference — which was organized together with ELNET, an organization working to build ties between Israel and Europe —Tal Meron announces that “we are declaring today the establishment of an important historical coalition, of acknowledging sexual violence as a crime of war.”
International law has already recognized this, she say, but “the cultural and political perception” must change.
She notes, “For the 128 hostages, and especially the 17 women who are still held in Gaza, this reality is going on now for 227 days.”
In a prerecorded message, former French prime minister Manuel Vals compares Hamas crimes to those committed by Russian forces in Ukraine and argues that “we could have hoped for greater outrage at this femicide, at these appalling atrocities, and notably by part of the feminist movement that has remained too silent.”
French MP Aurore Bergé, minister for gender equality and the fight against discrimination, likewise addresses the conference, declaring that Israel “can count on France’s determination… to combat this scourge [of weaponized sexual violence] we sadly see reemerging.”
“We will stand by your side to shed light on what happened,” she says. “These crimes too must not be unpunished.”
Iran opposition group calls Raisi death a ‘monumental’ blow to mullahs’ rule
The death of Iranian president Ebrahim Raisi in a helicopter crash is a major blow to the Islamic Republic’s clerical leadership, an exiled opposition group says, predicting a succession of crises.
The People’s Mujahedin of Iran (MEK) and its political wing the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) have long detested Raisi, accusing him of involvement in the 1988 mass executions of thousands of their members and other dissidents when he was a young prosecutor.
Raisi’s death “represents a monumental and irreparable strategic blow to the mullahs’ supreme leader Ali Khamenei and the entire regime, notorious for its executions and massacres,” NCRI leader Maryam Rajavi says in a statement.
“It will trigger a series of repercussions and crises within theocratic tyranny, which will spur rebellious youths into action,” she says.
The MEK accuses Raisi, as Tehran deputy prosecutor in the late 1980s, of playing a key part in the executions of thousands of political prisoners, mostly suspected members of the opposition group.
Raisi at the time was a member of what opponents call a four-man “Death Committee” that sent convicts to their executions without a shred of due process.