Ismail Haniyeh has travelled on diplomatic missions to Iran and Turkey throughout the warfare (File)
The prosecutor for the Worldwide Prison Court docket on Monday utilized for arrest warrants towards three high leaders of the Palestinian Islamist motion Hamas whose bloody October 7 assault triggered the continued warfare.
Karim Khan additionally stated he was making use of for arrest warrants towards Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defence Minister Yoav Gallant.
Here’s what we all know in regards to the three Palestinians that ICC prosecutor Karim Khan desires arrested.
Ismail Haniyeh, the politician:
Ismail Haniyeh, 60, was elected head of the Hamas political bureau in 2017 to succeed Khaled Meshaal, however was already a well known determine having develop into Palestinian prime minister in 2006 following an upset victory by Hamas in that 12 months’s parliamentary election.
However the fragile power-sharing association with the Fatah motion of Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas quickly ruptured and Hamas took full management of the Gaza Strip in 2007 after violently ousting the president’s loyalists.
Thought-about a pragmatist, Haniyeh lives in exile and splits his time between Turkey and Qatar.
He has travelled on diplomatic missions to Iran and Turkey throughout the warfare, assembly each the Turkish and Iranian presidents.
Haniyeh is alleged to take care of good relations with the heads of the assorted Palestinian factions, together with rivals to Hamas.
In his youth, the Hamas chief, who is thought for having a peaceful manner, was a member of the coed department of the Muslim Brotherhood on the Islamic College of Gaza.
He joined Hamas in 1987 when the group was based amid the outbreak of the primary Palestinian intifada, or rebellion, towards Israeli occupation, which lasted till 1993.
Throughout that point Haniyeh was imprisoned by Israel a number of instances after which expelled to south Lebanon for six months.
In footage broadcast by Hamas-linked media after the October 7 assault, Haniyeh was seen watching pictures on tv of the unfolding assault on Israel, earlier than becoming a member of different Hamas leaders in a prayer to “thank Allah for this victory”.
Whereas greater than seven months of warfare have left swathes of Gaza in rubble, Haniyeh repeatedly insisted that the group would hand over hostages provided that there was a everlasting finish to the combating.
Mohammed Deif, the ‘chief of employees’
The elusive Mohammed Deif heads Hamas’s armed wing, the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades.
He’s Israel’s public enemy primary and a person they’ve tried to assassinate no less than six instances.
Deif, whose actual identify is Mohammed Diab al-Masri, was born in 1965 in Gaza’s Khan Yunis refugee camp.
He has additionally been on the US listing of “worldwide terrorists” since 2015.
Thought-about by Hamas to be the group’s “chief of employees”, Deif introduced the beginning of the Hamas assault on Israel dubbed “Al-Aqsa Flood” in an audio message on October 7.
Within the recording, Deif is heard saying that “the positions and fortifications of the enemy have been focused by 5,000 rockets and shells throughout the first 20 minutes” of the assault.
Just a few, poor-quality pictures of Deif are identified to exist, the latest taken some 20 years in the past.
His hiding place is unknown and he’s reported to be a grasp of disguise adept at mixing into the Palestinian inhabitants.
He has been concerned with Hamas because the Nineteen Eighties and is alleged to have taken half in a lot of its operations, together with the kidnapping of troopers and suicide bombings.
He was appointed head of Hamas’s army wing in 2002 after the dying of his predecessor, Salah Shehade, in an Israeli air raid.
Two years earlier, at the beginning of the second intifada, Deif escaped or was free of a jail run by Yasser Arafat’s Palestinian Authority.
Shortly after he was named Hamas’s army head, Israel launched its fifth bid to assassinate him in Gaza, in an assault that left him severely wounded, with unconfirmed stories suggesting he had been left paraplegic.
In 2014, Israel launched an air strike on Gaza, killing Deif’s spouse and one of many couple’s youngsters.
His enemies have dubbed him the “cat with 9 lives” whereas many Palestinians think about him a residing legend.
Yahya Sinwar, the ‘strongman’ of Gaza
A former commander of the Hamas army wing, Yahya Sinwar, 61, was elected in 2017 as head of the Hamas group in Gaza.
Now, Israeli officers say he’s a “lifeless man strolling”.
Sinwar stands accused of masterminding the group’s October 7 assault on southern Israeli communities.
He rose by the ranks of Hamas as a fierce advocate of armed battle towards Israel and is taken into account the group’s “defence minister”.
Sinwar, who is aware of Israel nicely and speaks Hebrew, spent 23 years in Israeli jails earlier than his launch in 2011 in a prisoner alternate involving French-Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit.
Like Deif, he is also on the US listing of needed “worldwide terrorists”.
Israeli officers have stated that the continued offensive on Gaza is in pursuit of senior Hamas leaders together with Sinwar.
Identified for his secrecy, Sinwar is a safety operator “par excellence”, in accordance with Abu Abdallah, a Hamas member who spent years alongside him in Israeli jails.
Like Deif, he was born within the Khan Yunis refugee camp, and it was Sinwar who arrange the group’s inside safety equipment.
For the reason that warfare broke out Sinwar’s whereabouts have been unknown, however the Israeli military launched a video in February it stated confirmed the him being led by a tunnel along with a lady and three youngsters.
(Apart from the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV employees and is printed from a syndicated feed.)