By: Fern Sidman

In what is being hailed as a potential turning point in Israel’s long and fraught battle with the International Criminal Court (ICC), the ICC’s Appeals Chamber on Thursday reversed a landmark November 2024 ruling that had rejected Israel’s jurisdictional objections to the issuance of arrest warrants for alleged war crimes against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant.

As reported by The Jerusalem Post, the decision is not only a major legal win for Israel—its first significant success before the ICC since 2012—but also a dramatic shift in the trajectory of a case that had, until now, been rapidly advancing through the ICC’s procedural stages. Legal experts say the ruling may halt the momentum behind attempts to criminalize Israel’s leaders for their roles in prosecuting the war in Gaza, at least for the foreseeable future.

The ruling came after years of legal defeats for Israel at the ICC. Beginning in 2019, and continuing through 2021 and the particularly damaging ruling of November 2024, the Court had consistently allowed proceedings against Israeli leaders to advance, raising the prospect of indictments and international arrest warrants for top officials.

As The Jerusalem Post report noted, the 2024 decision was viewed in Israel as a “devastating legal loss” with far-reaching diplomatic, reputational, and economic consequences. The issuance of arrest warrants for Netanyahu and Gallant, even in their preliminary form, led to growing isolation in parts of the international community and sparked fears of travel restrictions, sanctions, and diplomatic upheaval.

But Thursday’s ruling from the Appeals Chamber suspended that trajectory, sending the case back to the ICC’s Pre-Trial Chamber for a full reconsideration of Israel’s jurisdictional objections.

At the heart of the legal reversal was a procedural issue with profound implications: When should the Court consider a state’s objections to its jurisdiction?

The ICC’s lower chamber had ruled that jurisdictional objections could be deferred to later stages—such as indictment or trial. But the Appeals Chamber decisively rejected that position, siding with Israel’s contention that under Article 19(2)(c) of the Rome Statute, such objections must be considered before arrest warrants are issued, as was explained in The Jerusalem Post report.

“Israel’s challenge to the jurisdiction of the Court pursuant to Article 19(2) of the Statute should not have been dismissed as premature,” the Appeals Chamber wrote, as cited by The Jerusalem Post.

The judges concluded that the lower court “committed an error of law” in refusing to address Israel’s jurisdictional claims and therefore ordered the Pre-Trial Chamber to reexamine the case in light of these arguments.

Although the arrest warrants for Netanyahu and Gallant technically remain in force, the ruling effectively freezes their enforcement. As The Jerusalem Post report indicated, many member states of the ICC may now feel justified in ignoring the warrants until a final determination is reached, which could take months or even years.

This legal pause provides crucial breathing room for Israel’s diplomatic corps, which has been working tirelessly to push back against the warrants and to discredit the legitimacy of ICC intervention in Israel’s conduct of war against Hamas in Gaza.

As The Jerusalem Post has reported extensively, Israel’s central legal arguments against ICC jurisdiction revolve around two pillars: Israel contends that there is no sovereign State of Palestine recognized under international law that could validly delegate jurisdiction to the ICC. Since the Palestinian Authority is not a state party under the terms of the Rome Statute, its referrals to the Court should be invalid. Israel maintains that it has a robust, independent judicial system capable of investigating and prosecuting any alleged war crimes committed by its soldiers or officials. Under the ICC’s own principle of complementarity, which prevents the Court from intervening in cases already handled by credible national systems, Israel argues that ICC involvement is redundant and legally improper.

The Appeals Chamber’s ruling means these arguments will now receive a comprehensive hearing at the lower court level, something Israel has sought since the initiation of the proceedings.

While the main jurisdictional objection was upheld, Israel suffered a narrow defeat on its second grounds for appeal, which sought to force the ICC Prosecutor to issue a new notice under Article 18(1) of the Rome Statute, The Jerusalem Post report said. The Appeals Chamber ruled by a 3-2 majority that this portion of the appeal was inadmissible, as the Pre-Trial Chamber’s earlier ruling was not a decision related to admissibility under Article 82(1)(a).

Judges Tomoko Akane (Presiding), Gocha Lordkipanidze, and Erdenebalsuren Damdin comprised the majority, while Judges Luz del Carmen Ibáñez Carranza and Solomy Balungi Bossa dissented.

The ruling may embolden other countries skeptical of the ICC’s reach, particularly in cases involving non-member states like Israel and the United States. It also poses a potential credibility challenge to the ICC, which has increasingly faced accusations of political bias and selective enforcement.

As The Jerusalem Post report emphasized, this decision represents a rare moment in which Israel’s legal and diplomatic strategy has gained ground, after years of frustration and mounting legal jeopardy.

For now, the ICC’s war crimes case against Netanyahu and Gallant is in legal limbo. The Pre-Trial Chamber must revisit the jurisdictional question from the beginning, and there is no timetable for how long that process might take.

What’s clear is that the momentum has shifted. Israel’s voice, once dismissed as “premature,” will now be formally heard. Whether that will lead to the dismissal of the case entirely remains to be seen, but the decision marks a turning point in a legal saga with profound implications not only for Israel, but for how international criminal law is applied to democratic nations defending themselves from terrorism.

As The Jerusalem Post concluded, “Thursday’s ruling is not the end of the ICC case against Israel. But it is, at long last, the beginning of a fair hearing.”