Father of hostage meets ICC prosecutor to push for Netanyahu’s arrest

Yehuda Cohen said he was using this pressure tactic to ensure the implementation of the second phase of the deal, when male soldiers would be released.

By Batya Jerenberg, World Israel News

A father of a soldier whom Hamas is holding hostage met the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague Tuesday to push for the implementation of the body’s arrest warrant for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Yehuda Cohen, whose son Nimrod was captured by Hamas forces in his tank on the border during the terror organization’s invasion of Israel October 7, 2023, said that his motivation was to pressure Netanyahu to keep all stages of the just-completed deal with Hamas,and not stop after the first phase.

“My motivation in the meeting was the promise of a ceasefire,” he told Kan News. “And the promise that phase two of the deal will be implemented” when his son, along with other younger male hostages, are to be freed in exchange for Israel’s complete withdrawal from the Gaza Strip and the release of more than 1,000 Palestinian security prisoners.

Cohen met with Karim Khan “in the interest of the State of Israel,” he insisted. “Because the Israeli government is not working to save Israeli citizens, we need to go to external bodies. From [President Donald] Trump, through foreign governments, international organizations and also a body like the ICC.”

In an interview with Ynet, Cohen said that Khan had spoken to him “respectfully” but said that he couldn’t discuss the warrants, which charge Netanyahu and former defense minister Yoav Gallant with committing war crimes in Gaza, a charge vociferously denied by almost the entire political spectrum in Israel.

Cohen begged to differ, as he told the Knesset’s Constitution, Law, and Justice Committee last week.

“Netanyahu is committing war crimes against Israeli soldiers by prolonging a pointless war for more than a year,” he said. “If supporting these arrest warrants pushes Netanyahu to abandon his private interests to pursue the deal and comply with it down to the last hostage – I’ll do it.”

Cohen outlined his plan to visit The Hague last month, telling the legislature’s Finance Committee that he was going to meet Khan “to support his lawsuit against Netanyahu, who is not only committing genocide in Gaza but is also committing genocide in Israel – 2,000 deaths.”

His number was apparently a rounding upward of the 1,200 people murdered by Hamas and other terrorists in their October 7, 2023 invasion and the number of IDF soldiers and civilians who have died during the war, whether in the fighting or as a result of missile attacks launched by Hamas, Hezbollah in Lebanon, and the Houthis in Yemen.

He also accused the government of paying the hostage families in an effort to dull their protests over the course of the war.

Cohen told the committee that he and the other families receive NIS 90,000 each quarter and an additional NIS 10,000 a month from the government.

He said that he was going to fly to the Hague with this “hush money” that the State was giving him “as a bribe, perhaps to keep quiet, perhaps [as a way of saying] ‘Wait about your son, you’re making money from it meanwhile.’”

He noted that “as an Israeli patriot” for having served in the army, working in a high-tech company that brings in foreign currency to the country, and paying his taxes, “I have to go to an international legal body to help us pressure Mr. Netanyahu, the defendant, to make a deal to release all the hostages, including my son, who is at the end of the list because he is a soldier and went to serve the country.”