The findings by the State Department’s Office of Inspector General mark the first time a US government report has acknowledged the scale of Israeli actions in Gaza that fall under the purview of Leahy Laws that bar US assistance to foreign military units credibly accused of gross human rights abuses. Indirectly, these findings also highlight US complicity in the Gaza genocide, due to continuing arms transfers and financing.

Conveniently, the story was released only after two years of Israel’s genocidal atrocities in Gaza. In light of an avalanche of international reports during the period, the classified report represents the tip of an iceberg.

And yet, in November 2024, after an investigation of war crimes and crimes against humanity, the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued arrest warrants for only two Israeli government leaders: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and his former defense minister Yoav Gallant. The two were alleged to be responsible for the war crime of starvation as a method of warfare and for crimes against humanity of murder, persecution and other inhumane acts early in the Gaza war (genocide was not included).

Effectively, there are circles of Israeli officials who share complicity for the Gaza genocide, including high-profile ministers, internationally less-known enablers, military and intelligence architects of obliteration, Netanyahu's veteran advisor and the president.   

Supporting Netanyahu and Gallant, there are at least half a dozen cabinet members who contributed to those brutalities, with some insisting on more destructive measures and protracted bombardment.

Even before Israel's genocidal atrocities in Gaza, National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, the leader of the far-right and supremacist Jewish Power party, had long promoted the expulsion of “non-loyal” Arab citizens, the full blockade of Gaza, the Judaization of Israel-occupied Palestinian territories and total elimination of Hamas and all who support Palestinian resistance.

Still another hardliner is Netanyahu’s Foreign Minister Israel Katz. As Netanyahu’s energy minister in October 2023, Katz had famously declared a complete siege of Gaza: no “electrical switch will be turned on, no water hydrant will be opened and no fuel truck will enter.” More recently, now-Defense Minister Katz pledged that Gaza will be destroyed, and that anyone who stays in Gaza City will be considered "terrorists and terror supporters."

Though less known internationally, another set of cabinet members contributed to the protracted genocidal atrocities. After Oct. 7, 2023, then Information Minister Galit-Distel Atbaryan posted her infamous tweet: “Erase Gaza from the face of the earth […] and fire and brimstone on the heads of the Nazis in Judea and Samaria (the Hebraized term for the West Bank).”

Then there was the Minister for Social Equality and as Minister for Women's Empowerment May Golan, long haunted by bribery and fraud allegations. Golan is Netanyahu’s openly racist appointee, who had hoped to serve as Israel consul general in New York City until her appointment was rejected. She called for another Nakba” (lit. “Catastrophe” in Arabic referring to the mass displacement and dispossession of Palestinians in 1948), to cleanse all Palestinians from Gaza.

Despite their supportive roles and accessorial liability in the Palestinian genocide, none of these cabinet members have been charged by the ICC.

In spring 2024, Benny Gantz, the leader of a center-right party and former Israel Defense Force chief of general staff, was portrayed as a "moderate" alternative to Netanyahu by the US Secretary of State Blinken. And yet, Gantz sat in Netanyahu’s cabinet through the most devastating phase of Israel’s assault against Gaza. Worse, in the past, he has been haunted by several war crime allegations.

The portrait of Netanyahu’s cabinet also features Isaac Herzog, the Israeli president. Right after Oct. 7, 2023, Herzog condemned all residents of Gaza for “collective responsibility” in the Hamas attack on Israel. In this view, there were no innocents in Gaza. The doctrine legitimized the killings of Palestinian women and children who account for 70 percent of the perished in Gaza.

In light of the track record of these and other high-level officials, the ICC arrest warrants for PM Netanyahu and his ex-defense minister Gallant would seem to be largely symbolic. 

Normally, a prosecution team would draw a long list of potential indictees and then decide who could be prosecuted, relying on the strength of available evidence and the resources of the prosecution team.

In light of the ICC’s arrest warrants, the prosecutor’s office reportedly had a wider net of names that were considered. The decision to zoom onto just Netanyahu and Gallant was likely motivated by the view that they represented the apex of Israel’s military campaign against Gaza and its people.

Furthermore, the two were charged mainly with war crimes and crimes against humanity, not genocide.

Presumably, the ICC prosecutor office may wait until there is a final ruling on South Africa’s charge of genocide, likely in late 2027 or early 2028, before deciding whether to add genocide to the list of charges against Netanyahu, Gallant and anyone else that they add to the list.

The effort to charge two Israeli leaders rather than the entire cabinet, whose members have had a substantial role in the genocidal atrocities, does not represent the pursuit of “victims’ justice.” In substance, it is still another instance of “victors’ justice,” as the former colonial powers continue to undermine appropriate genocide prosecution.

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The writer is the author of The Obliteration Doctrine (2025) and The Fall of Israel (2024), and the founder of Difference Group. The original version was published by Informed Comment (US).