The International Criminal Court (“ICC”) should investigate former U.S. officials President Joe Biden, Secretary of State Anthony Blinken, and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin for their accessorial roles in aiding and abetting, as well as intentionally contributing to, Israeli war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza, said DAWN in a 172-page communication to the ICC Prosecutor Karim Khan made on January 19, 2025. Prepared with the support of ICC-registered lawyers and other war crimes experts, the submission details a pattern of deliberate and purposeful decisions by these officials to provide military, political, and public support to facilitate Israeli crimes in Gaza; this support included at least $17.9 billion of weapons transfers, intelligence sharing, targeting assistance, diplomatic protection, and official endorsement of Israeli crimes, despite knowledge of how such support had and would substantially enable grave abuses.
“There are solid grounds to investigate Joe Biden, Antony Blinken and Lloyd Austin for complicity in Israel’s crimes,” said Reed Brody, DAWN board member. “The bombs dropped on Palestinian hospitals, schools and homes are American bombs, the campaign of murder and persecution has been carried out with American support. US officials have been aware of exactly what Israel is doing, and yet their support never stopped.”
“Not only did Biden, Blinken and Secretary Austin ignore and justify the overwhelming evidence of Israel’s grotesque and deliberate crimes, overruling their own staff recommendations to halt weapons transfers to Israel, they doubled down by providing Israel with unconditional military and political support to ensure it could carry out its atrocities,” said Sarah Leah Whitson, Executive Director of DAWN. “They provided Israel with not only essential military support but equally essential political support by vetoing multiple ceasefire resolutions at the UN Security Council to ensure Israel could continue its crimes.”
“Trump isn’t just obstructing justice; he’s trying to burn down the courthouse to prevent anyone from holding Israeli criminals accountable,” said Raed Jarrar, DAWN’s advocacy director. “His plan to forcibly displace all Palestinians from Gaza should also merit ICC investigation—not just for aiding and abetting Israeli crimes but for ordering forcible transfer, a crime against humanity under the Rome Statute.”
DAWN is a U.S. nonprofit organization that supports democracy and human rights in the Middle East and North Africa.
