The former head of the Mossad, Israel’s foreign intelligence agency, allegedly threatened a chief prosecutor of the international criminal court in a series of secret meetings in which he tried to pressure her into abandoning a war crimes investigation, the Guardian can reveal.

Yossi Cohen’s covert contacts with the ICC’s then prosecutor, Fatou Bensouda, took place in the years leading up to her decision to open a formal investigation into alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity in occupied Palestinian territories.

That investigation, launched in 2021, culminated last week when Bensouda’s successor, Karim Khan, announced that he was seeking an arrest warrant for the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, over the country’s conduct in its war in Gaza.

The prosecutor’s decision to apply to the ICC’s pre-trial chamber for arrest warrants for Netanyahu and his defence minister, Yoav Gallant, alongside three Hamas leaders, is an outcome Israel’s military and political establishment has long feared.

Cohen’s personal involvement in the operation against the ICC took place when he was the director of the Mossad. His activities were authorised at a high level and justified on the basis the court posed a threat of prosecutions against military personnel, according to a senior Israeli official.

Another Israeli source briefed on the operation against Bensouda said the Mossad’s objective was to compromise the prosecutor or enlist her as someone who would cooperate with Israel’s demands.

A third source familiar with the operation said Cohen was acting as Netanyahu’s “unofficial messenger”.

Cohen, who was one of Netanyahu’s closest allies at the time and is emerging as a political force in his own right in Israel, personally led the Mossad’s involvement in an almost decade-long campaign by the country to undermine the court.

The fact that the homophobic term the Pope used is like, intercommunity Italian gay slang, adds a whole nother level.

Imagine if the Pope called someone a "passoid." Holy Father who taught you that word.

haunted ass photo

Bruce about to reveal his identity to the JL

Bruce: “I’m going to do something that may traumatize two of you. I am not sorry.”

Oliver: “oh come on Batman your identity isn’t that special.”

Bruce going full whiny play boy: “Dinah! Ollie is being mean to me!!!”

Oliver: blue screens

Dinah: “YOU BITCH!?”

mood