A former head of Human Rights Watch (HRW) described dozens of hostages held by Hamas as “utter irrelevancies” on Wednesday.
Kenneth Roth, a visiting professor at Princeton and the former executive director of HRW, accused the Israeli government of giving “diversionary excuses” in response to charges against two top officials by the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague. The ICC charged Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former defense minister, Yoav Gallant, of committing war crimes in the war against Hamas in Gaza.
One of the “excuses” cited by Roth is Israel’s mission to rescue roughly 100 hostages taken by Hamas during its October 7, 2023, terror attack.
“The Israeli government responded to the ICC war-crime charges with the usual diversionary excuses – the need to liberate the hostages, Hamas’s use of human shields, Israel’s democracy and…
