Foreign Affairs Minister M茅lanie Joly says Canada is 鈥渧ery closely鈥� following a push from the International Criminal Court to prosecute the Israeli prime minister and Hamas leaders over the war in the Gaza Strip.
The court鈥檚 chief prosecutor requested arrest warrants Monday for Benjamin Netanyahu, his defence minister and senior Hamas leaders.
Ottawa has so far avoided supporting or denouncing the idea of charges, and ministers are only weighing in a day after peer countries took clearer stances.
On Monday, the U.S. rejected the move to implicate Israel alongside Hamas, while France and Belgium supported the decision and Germany said it respects the court鈥檚 independence.
Joly says no equivalence can be drawn between Israel and Hamas, but she also says the court decided upon different charges against the leaders from each side of the conflict.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has yet to make a statement, though a handful of vocal Liberal MPs are taking more defined stances.
鈥淲e respect the independence of the ICC. All parties must make sure that they abide by international law, including international humanitarian law. We鈥檝e been calling all parties to do so for months now, and so therefore we are closely monitoring the process,鈥� Joly told reporters Tuesday afternoon on Parliament Hill.
鈥淥f course there鈥檚 no equivalency because one organization鈥檚 a terrorist organization; the other one is a state. That being said, (the) charges that have been laid are different.鈥�
Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland was repeatedly asked for Canada鈥檚 position on the developments earlier Tuesday at an unrelated press conference.
鈥淚t is entirely inappropriate to equate the terrorist leaders of a terrorist organization with the democratically elected leaders of a democracy,鈥� she said.
But Freeland would not comment on whether or not Ottawa supports the request for warrants to be issued, characterizing that as 鈥減reliminary鈥� and 鈥渉ypothetical.鈥�
Iqra Khalid said in a post on X that Canada must respect the ICC and its independence.
Anthony Housefather argued the decision was drawing a moral equivalency between terrorist leaders and democratically elected politicians 鈥� language Freeland would later echo.
Their colleague Salma Zahid said Ottawa should support the ICC鈥檚 legal process, arguing its role is 鈥渘ot to judge moral equivalence, but to impartially consider the evidence.鈥�
Another Liberal MP, Sameer Zuberi, added in his own social-media post that Canada must await the result of the request, while noting that 鈥渘o party to an armed conflict is above the law.鈥�
The Liberals and NDP passed a parliamentary motion in March that called on Canada to 鈥渟upport the work of the International Court of Justice and the International Criminal Court.鈥�
NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh said in a social-media post that Trudeau 鈥渕ust respect his promise to Canadians.鈥�
Trudeau is slated to speak with media Tuesday afternoon in Philadelphia.
READ ALSO:
The Canadian Press
