In a brazen display of political theatre, Netanyahu, the Israeli Prime Minister, gave Trump, President of the Fascist Part of the USA, a letter signalling that he will nominate Trump for the Nobel Peace Prize on 7 July 2025. This astonishing act, a public declaration of mutual admiration, forces a critical examination of the profoundly troubling realities it seeks to obscure. Netanyahu himself is not only under intense international scrutiny but, as confirmed on 21 November 2024, faces an active arrest warrant from the International Criminal Court (ICC) for war crimes and crimes against humanity. The charges against him include the war crime of starvation as a method of warfare and the crimes against humanity of murder, persecution and other inhumane acts. This makes him a wanted individual in 124 countries, including Norway, the very nation that hosts the Nobel Committee. The image of a leader sought by international justice bestowing a peace accolade on another who actively enables alleged atrocities is not merely ironic; it is a calculated manipulation, designed to legitimise their shared agenda and deflect from the grave accusations levelled against them. Put more crudely, it’s what happens when shit meets shit. You just get more shit.
This macabre charade is far from a mere symbolic gesture; it is a chilling indicator of a tangible, coordinated policy: the active and increasingly overt effort to remove Palestinians from the Gaza Strip. Donald Trump’s persistent propagation of the idea that other Middle Eastern states will willingly absorb Palestinians from Gaza is a dangerous fiction, a trope recycled to deflect from the humanitarian crisis unfolding. This claim is not only historically inaccurate but contemporarily false. For decades, Palestinian refugees, many displaced from their homes in 1948 and 1967, have sought refuge in neighbouring countries such as Jordan, Lebanon and Syria. While some found initial sanctuary, these host nations have largely struggled under the immense demographic, economic and social strain and many Palestinians within these countries continue to face significant challenges regarding full citizenship and integration (Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 2018). Jordan's King Abdullah II, for instance, has vehemently warned against any forced displacement into his country, unequivocally stating it as a "red line" and insisting that the humanitarian situation must be addressed within Gaza and the West Bank (Al Jazeera, 2023). The notion of a broad, voluntary absorption of Gaza's population by other Arab states is therefore not supported by historical precedent, existing political will or current geopolitical realities. It is a transparent attempt to reframe forced expulsion as a benign solution, a cruel deception designed to mask an underlying agenda of demographic engineering.
Further exposing this deeply disturbing agenda, Israel’s Defence Minister, Israel Katz, has unveiled a chilling and meticulously planned scheme to confine Gaza’s entire Palestinian population to a sprawling "humanitarian city" or "ghetto" on the ruins of Rafah. This vision, as articulated by Katz in a briefing for Israeli journalists, is not about providing genuine humanitarian relief; it is about absolute control and permanent containment. His description of a scenario where Palestinians would undergo "security screening" before entering this designated city and, crucially, "would not be allowed to leave", paints a stark picture of an open-air prison. This blueprint for internment, deliberately engineered to restrict freedom of movement and self-determination, constitutes a flagrant violation of fundamental human rights and international law. It points towards a future where Gaza’s inhabitants are not just displaced from their homes but permanently confined, stripped of their agency and dignity. Such a plan, actively supported and enabled by powerful international figures like Trump, speaks volumes about the true intent behind the rhetoric of "peace" and "security". It reveals a strategy of de-development and depopulation, disguised under the guise of humanitarian concern.
The financial and military bedrock of this campaign of dispossession is the United States’ unwavering, and indeed escalating, support for Israel. Since October 7th 2023, US military aid to Israel has surged dramatically, reaching unprecedented levels. Data indicates that the US government has approved at least $17.9 billion in security assistance for Israeli military operations between October 2023 and September 2024 (Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs, Brown University, 2024). This colossal sum represents a significant increase compared to previous years, marking it as the largest annual amount of military aid since the US began providing such assistance in 1959. This substantial influx of weaponry, including guided missiles, artillery shells and advanced defence systems, comes amidst a devastating human toll in Gaza, with over 60,000 deaths and widespread destruction of civilian infrastructure (Al Jazeera, 2025). The direct correlation between this surge in military aid and the escalating humanitarian catastrophe proves more than mere passive support; it implies active complicity in a campaign that has demonstrably led to catastrophic loss of life, mass displacement and immense suffering. The Trump administration, through its consistent and robust military aid, has directly facilitated the ongoing conflict and enabled the very policies that are driving the alleged removal of Palestinians from Gaza.
To fully grasp the gravity of these actions and their implications for international justice, we must rigorously examine them against the principles of international law, specifically the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court (ICC). The Rome Statute, the foundational treaty of the ICC, meticulously defines four core international crimes:
The Crime of Genocide: Article 6 of the Rome Statute defines genocide as acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group. These acts include killing members of the group; causing serious bodily or mental harm; or deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part (Rome Statute, Article 6). The systematic targeting of residential areas, hospitals, schools and other civilian infrastructure in Gaza, coupled with the deprivation of essential resources like food, water and medicine and the creation of unliveable conditions, raise profound questions about whether such actions could meet the stringent threshold for genocidal intent.
Crimes Against Humanity: Defined in Article 7 of the Rome Statute, these are serious violations committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack directed against any civilian population, with knowledge of the attack. The fifteen listed forms include murder, extermination, deportation or forcible transfer of population, imprisonment, torture, apartheid, and other inhumane acts. The proposed "ghettoisation" of Gaza’s population, with explicit restrictions on movement and exit, directly implicates the crime of "deportation or forcible transfer of population" and the "crime of apartheid," which involves inhumane acts committed in the context of an institutionalised regime of systematic oppression and domination by one racial group over another. The systematic nature of the current operations, coupled with the stated intent of confinement, points towards these grave violations.
War Crimes: Article 8 of the Rome Statute specifies war crimes as grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions committed in the context of armed conflict. These include, but are not limited to, wilfully causing great suffering or serious injury, extensive destruction and appropriation of property not justified by military necessity, intentionally directing attacks against civilians or civilian objects and intentionally directing attacks against buildings dedicated to religion, education, art, science or charitable purposes, hospitals and places where the sick and wounded are collected, provided they are not military objectives (Rome Statute, Article 8). The immense scale of civilian casualties, the targeting of hospitals and refugee camps and the widespread destruction of essential civilian infrastructure in Gaza demand rigorous scrutiny under this classification, potentially implicating all those who facilitate such acts.
The Crime of Aggression: Article 8 bis of the Rome Statute defines the crime of aggression as the planning, preparation, initiation or execution by a person in a position effectively to exercise control over or to direct the political or military action of a State, of an act of aggression which, by its characteristics, gravity and scale, constitutes a manifest violation of the Charter of the United Nations (Rome Statute, Article 8 bis). While often applied to state-level actions, the specific intent to control and fundamentally alter the status of a territory and its population could be considered within this broader framework, particularly if such actions involve an unlawful use of force.
When the stated policies and observable actions of Donald Trump, Benjamin Netanyahu and Israel Katz are assessed through the legal lens of the Rome Statute, a deeply concerning picture emerges. Trump’s consistent political and military support for policies that facilitate mass suffering and forced displacement in Gaza, his promotion of demonstrably false narratives and his disregard for the principles of international humanitarian law, position him far from any credible definition of a "peacemaker". His rhetoric and actions align disturbingly with the elements required to establish complicity in international crimes. It is a lamentable indictment of political will that the British government, a signatory to the Rome Statute and a purported champion of human rights and international law, appears to lack the moral courage or political fortitude to initiate appropriate proceedings or condemn these actions more forcefully. The silence, in the face of such clear and mounting evidence, risks normalising what should be unequivocally denounced as a profound assault on human dignity and the established international legal order. The world watches and history will cast a harsh judgement upon those who facilitated, enabled, or remained silent in the face of such egregious injustices.
The question - will Trump be issued with an arrest warrant for war crimes?
References
Al Jazeera. (2023). Jordan's king Abdullah warns against pushing refugees into Egypt or Jordan. [Online]. https://www.aljazeera.com/news/liveblog/2025/7/8/live-israel-pounds-gaza-trump-netanyahu-hold-talks-on-ceasefire
Al Jazeera. (2025). Updates: Israel kills more than 60 in Gaza as Houthis attack ships. [Online]. https://www.aljazeera.com/news/liveblog/2025/7/7/live-israel-pounds-gaza-yemen-houthis-fire-more-missiles
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. (2018). Refugee Crises in the Arab World. [Online]. https://carnegieendowment.org/research/2018/10/refugee-crises-in-the-arab-world?lang=en
International Criminal Court. (n.d.). Netanyahu. [Online]. https://www.icc-cpi.int/defendant/netanyahu
Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court. (1998). Articles 6, 7, 8, 8 bis. https://www.ohchr.org/en/instruments-mechanisms/instruments/rome-statute-international-criminal-court
Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs, Brown University. (2024). United States Spending on Israel's Military Operations and Related U.S. Operations in the Region, October 7, 2023-September 30, 2024. Costs of War Project. [Online]. https://watson.brown.edu/costsofwar/papers/2024/USspendingIsrael
Author Michael Jones
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