Yesterday, Monday, the international team of lawyers assigned by the Palestinian Bar Association to the Office of the International Prosecutor and the International Criminal Court included the name of the new Israeli Minister of Defense, Yisrael Katz, on the list of those accused of committing war crimes and genocide in the Gaza Strip, and that he should be included in the arrest warrants.

The team requested the Office of the International Prosecutor to amend its request as a summary procedure in the matter of issuing an arrest warrant against the accused (No. 4), the dismissed Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Galant, by adding a new request that includes an arrest warrant for the accused (No. 20), Israel Katz, in addition to the two accused, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (No. 2) and Galant.

The head of the international lawyers' team, Dr. Faisal Khazal, said in a statement, a copy of which was received by "Ya" yesterday: "Since the date that Yisrael Katz (accused No. 20) assumed his position as Minister of War in the occupation government, there have been acts of genocide against unarmed civilians in the Gaza Strip in various forms of deliberate killing with premeditation and deliberation, in operations to take innocent lives from November 5, 2024 until the date of filing this annex No. 14 on November 11, 2024, as the crimes committed by Galant from October 2023 until the date of his dismissal on November 5, 2024 are the same crimes that are similar in terms of the size of the crime, its heinousness, the method of its commission and all its dimensions to the crimes committed by Katz from the date he assumed his position on November 5, 2024 until the present date."

Khazal concluded his statement by saying: “The crimes committed by Galant, on the basis of which the international prosecutor and his esteemed assistants requested the issuance of an arrest warrant against him, have continued in the same manner in terms of the way crimes were committed against unarmed civilians by Yisrael Katz, who replaced the accused Yoav Galant in all his job descriptions, powers and influence that grant him the same authorization to commit identical and similar crimes in terms of execution and continuity, and he is subject to the same accusation and the extent of the crime, since justice must not be deficient in the execution process, nor must it discriminate between one accused and another, or grant one of them advantages that the other does not enjoy, or immunity that enables him to escape punishment for committing crimes punishable by law.”