The Legal Department of the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine criticized the selective policies adopted by certain states in interpreting the provisions of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC), and the accompanying double standards and arbitrariness in the implementation of the Court’s rulings. It stressed that such an approach not only weakens the international justice system and undermines its course, but also provides cover for war criminals—foremost among them Benjamin Netanyahu—to evade accountability and continue committing their crimes.
The Department considered that allowing Netanyahu, who is officially wanted by the International Criminal Court, to pass through the airspace of some European states on his way to the United States without being arrested constitutes not only a direct challenge to the Court’s decisions, but also an assault on the very foundations of international law and the principles of justice and democracy that those states claim to uphold. It noted that this behavior exposes the falseness of claims regarding the protection of human rights and democracy, and represents a blatant disregard for the sacrifices of more than 300,000 Palestinian martyrs and wounded, thereby placing the credibility of the entire Western system under serious question.
The Legal Department pointed out that in 2024 the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants against Benjamin Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant. Nevertheless, Netanyahu has since carried out five foreign trips, deliberately avoiding the airspace of states that have explicitly declared their commitment to enforcing ICC arrest warrants, such as Ireland, Iceland, the Netherlands, Spain, Slovenia, Portugal, and the United Kingdom. In contrast, other states—including France, Italy, Croatia, Hungary, and Greece—have failed to comply with their legal obligations under the Rome Statute, despite being signatories to it, and despite their legal duty to arrest and surrender any person sought under an ICC decision if found on their territory or within their airspace.
The Legal Department of the Democratic Front recalled that such conduct constitutes a clear violation of Articles 86 and 89 of the Rome Statute: the former obliges States Parties to cooperate fully with the Court in its investigations and prosecutions, while the latter requires a State Party to arrest and surrender a wanted person to the Court whenever that person is present on its territory.
In concluding its statement, the Legal Department of the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine affirmed that the accumulation of facts reveals, day after day, the extent of the support Israel receives from a number of Western states in its ongoing aggression against the Palestinian people. It emphasized that providing an “airborne safe passage” for Netanyahu is a continuation of this partnership in the crime being committed against the Palestinian people. Accordingly, it called on the citizens of those states, as well as their political and party forces, to hold their governments accountable for the stark contradiction between their proclaimed rhetoric on justice and values and their actual practices, which lead to granting war criminals impunity. It further urged the exertion of all possible forms of pressure to end support for war criminals, to side with justice and international law, and to arrest Netanyahu and his fellow perpetrators of war crimes and bring them before international justice