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Blinken Says He’ll Work with US Congress to Respond to ICC Move on Gaza

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken testifies before a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on President Biden's proposed budget request for the Department of State, on Capitol Hill in Washington, US, May 21, 2024. (Reuters)
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken testifies before a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on President Biden's proposed budget request for the Department of State, on Capitol Hill in Washington, US, May 21, 2024. (Reuters)
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Blinken Says He’ll Work with US Congress to Respond to ICC Move on Gaza

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken testifies before a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on President Biden's proposed budget request for the Department of State, on Capitol Hill in Washington, US, May 21, 2024. (Reuters)
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken testifies before a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on President Biden's proposed budget request for the Department of State, on Capitol Hill in Washington, US, May 21, 2024. (Reuters)

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Tuesday said the Biden administration would be happy to work with Congress to formulate an appropriate response to the International Criminal Court prosecutor seeking to issue arrest warrants on Israeli leaders over the Gaza war.

Speaking at a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing, Blinken called the move "a profoundly wrong-headed" decision which would complicate the prospects of reaching a hostage deal and a ceasefire in Israel's conflict with the Palestinian group Hamas.

ICC prosecutor Karim Khan said on Monday he had reasonable grounds to believe that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel's defense chief and three Hamas leaders "bear criminal responsibility" for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity."

Washington roundly criticized Khan's announcement, arguing the court does not have jurisdiction over the Gaza conflict and raising concerns over process.

The United States is not a member of the court, but has supported past prosecutions, including the ICC's decision last year to issue an arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin over the war in Ukraine.

"We'll be happy to work with Congress, with this committee, on an appropriate response" to the ICC move, Blinken said on Tuesday.

He did not say what a response to the ICC move might include.

Republican members of Congress have threatened legislation to impose sanctions on the ICC, but a measure cannot become law without support from President Joe Biden and his fellow Democrats, who control the Senate.

In 2020, then-President Donald Trump's administration accused the ICC of infringing on US national sovereignty when it authorized an investigation into war crimes committed in Afghanistan. The US targeted court staff, including then-prosecutor Fatou Bensouda, with asset freezes and travel bans.

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7 Killed by Russian Attacks as Moscow Pushes Ahead in Ukraine's East

Ukrainian rescuers work at the site of a missile strike on a private building in Cherkaska Lozova, Kharkiv region, northeastern Ukraine, 31 August 2024, amid the Russian invasion. EPA/SERGEY KOZLOV
Ukrainian rescuers work at the site of a missile strike on a private building in Cherkaska Lozova, Kharkiv region, northeastern Ukraine, 31 August 2024, amid the Russian invasion. EPA/SERGEY KOZLOV
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7 Killed by Russian Attacks as Moscow Pushes Ahead in Ukraine's East

Ukrainian rescuers work at the site of a missile strike on a private building in Cherkaska Lozova, Kharkiv region, northeastern Ukraine, 31 August 2024, amid the Russian invasion. EPA/SERGEY KOZLOV
Ukrainian rescuers work at the site of a missile strike on a private building in Cherkaska Lozova, Kharkiv region, northeastern Ukraine, 31 August 2024, amid the Russian invasion. EPA/SERGEY KOZLOV

Russian shelling in the town of Chasiv Yar on Saturday killed five people, as Moscow’s troops pushed ahead in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region.
The attack struck a high-rise building and a private home, said regional Gov. Vadym Filaskhin, who said the victims were men aged 24 to 38. He urged the last remaining residents to leave the front-line town, which had a pre-war population of 12,000.
“Normal life has been impossible in Chasiv Yar for more than two years,” Filaskhin wrote on social media. “Do not become a Russian target — evacuate.” A further two people were killed by Russian shelling in the Kharkiv region. One victim was pulled from the rubble of a house in the village of Cherkaska Lozova, said Gov. Oleh Syniehubov, while a second woman died of her wounds while being transported to a hospital.
Meanwhile, Russia’s Ministry of Defense said it captured the town of Pivnichne, also in Ukraine’s Donetsk region. The Associated Press could not independently verify the claim.
Russian forces have been driving deeper into the partly occupied eastern region, the total capture of which is one of the Kremlin’s primary ambitions. Russia’s army is closing in on Pokrovsk, a critical logistics hub for the Ukrainian defense in the area.
At the same time, Ukraine has sent its forces into Russia’s Kursk region in recent weeks in the largest incursion onto Russian soil since World War II. The move is partly an effort to force Russia to draw troops away from the Donetsk front.
Elsewhere, the number of wounded following a Russian attack on the Ukrainian city of Kharkiv on Friday continued to rise.
Six people were killed, including a 14-year-old girl, when glide bombs struck five locations across the city, said regional Gov. Oleh Syniehubov. Writing on social media Saturday, he said that the number of injured had risen from 47 to 96.
Syniehubov also confirmed that the 12-story apartment block that was hit by one bomb strike, setting the building ablaze and trapping at least one person on an upper floor, would be partly demolished.
Ukrainian officials have previously pointed to the Kharkiv strikes as further evidence that Western partners should scrap restrictions on what the Ukrainian military can target with donated weapons.
In an interview with CNN on Friday, Ukrainian Defense Minister Rustem Umerov said that Kyiv had presented Washington with a list of potential long-range targets within Russia for its approval. “I hope we were heard,” he said.
He also denied speculation that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy ’s decision to dismiss the commander of the country’s air force Friday was directly linked to the destruction of an F-16 warplane that Ukraine received from its Western partners four days earlier.
The order to dismiss Lt. Gen. Mykola Oleshchuk was published on the presidential website minutes before an address which saw Zelenskyy stress the need to “take care of all our soldiers.”
“This is two separate issues,” said Umerov. “At this stage, I would not connect them.”
The number of injured also continued to rise in the Russian border region of Belgorod, where five people were killed Friday by Ukrainian shelling, said Gov. Vyacheslav Gladkov. He said Sunday that 46 people had been injured, of whom 37 were in the hospital, including seven children. Writing on social media, Gladkov also said that two others had been injured in Ukrainian shelling across the region.