To the Editor:
Florida Representatives Lois Frankel, Jared Moskowitz, Darren Soto and Debbie Wasserman Schultz have all condemned the International Criminal Court for issuing arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant. President Biden and congressional leaders have long contended that there is no moral equivalence between the actions of Israel and Hamas.
In its statement regarding the arrest warrants, the ICC concluded “that there are reasonable grounds to believe that both individuals intentionally and knowingly deprived the civilian population in Gaza of objects indispensable to their survival, including food, water, and medicine and medical supplies, as well as fuel and electricity.”
The ICC explained that Israel intentionally prevented anesthesia from reaching Gaza, and this has caused great suffering because doctors were forced to perform amputations on adults and children with no safe ways to sedate them.
Dr. Mike M. Mallah is a trauma surgeon from Charleston, South Carolina who volunteered in Gaza. He witnessed what he called “the intentional, purposeful choking of an entire healthcare system.” Mallah fought back tears as he described “anesthesiologists who don’t have anesthesia who are holding people down and singing to them so that they can comfort them and do their surgery.”
The ICC’s charges have nothing to do with moral equivalence or the comparison of Israel and Hamas. Rather, the ICC is evaluating Israel’s actions against the standards of international law.
Terry Hansen
Milwaukee
