GENEVA

The UN special rapporteur on Palestine said on Friday that she hopes the International Criminal Court's (ICC) landmark arrest warrants for Israel’s premier and former defense minister are the beginning of accountability.

"Despite all the limitations of the international justice system, which has reacted very late and still very late and very limited, this is such a historical day for the Palestinian people," Francesca Albanese told Anadolu.

The ICC's decision, she said, addresses "two of the major responsible, two of the major architects of the crimes that have been executed against the Palestinians is just the beginning of, I hope, a long but not slow process of accountability."

❝This is such a historical day for the Palestinian people❞

Francesca Albanese, UN's special rapporteur, hopes International Criminal Court's arrest warrants for Israel’s prime minister and former defense minister are the beginning of accountability https://t.co/tQ5wdODrYF ⤵️ pic.twitter.com/mKYS2anzcj

— Anadolu English (@anadoluagency) November 22, 2024

"May this be followed by full cooperation from member states," she said and also warned, "If the system is not respected, it will fall and will fall on our heads."

The special rapporteur emphasized the court’s role as "a fundamental pillar of the international justice system and international legal order,” cautioning against undermining its authority at such a critical juncture.

The court on Thursday said it “found reasonable grounds” to believe that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant bear criminal responsibility for "the war crime of starvation as a method of warfare; and the crimes against humanity of murder, persecution, and other inhumane acts."

Both “bear criminal responsibility as civilian superiors for the war crime of intentionally directing an attack against the civilian population,” it said.

Gallant lost the defense ministry helm just weeks ago after leading a brutal Israel offensive from October 2023 until early November—over a year.

The warrants come as Israel’s genocidal offensive in Gaza recently entered its second year, having already killed some 44,000 Palestinians, most of them women and children, and injured over 104,000.

The Israeli onslaught has displaced almost the entire population of the territory amid an ongoing and deliberate blockade that has led to severe shortages of food, clean water, and medicine, pushing the population to the brink of starvation.