Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the architect of the ongoing genocide in Gaza, will be forced to appear three times a week in his long-running corruption trial starting in November, the Jerusalem District Court announced Tuesday.

The decision comes amid mounting domestic and international outrage over both his crimes against Palestinians and his deep entanglement in bribery and fraud scandals.

Netanyahu’s trial, which began in 2020, has dragged on for years — much like the illegal occupation and systematic destruction he has overseen in Gaza and the West Bank. Until now, the court had been holding two hearings per week since December, but frequent delays and shortened sessions — often due to Netanyahu’s “official duties,” illnesses, or claimed fatigue — have slowed proceedings to a crawl.

The court has now decided to speed up the process, holding four hearings weekly, with Netanyahu attending three of them until the conclusion of his cross-examination.

While he dodges justice for his corruption charges, Netanyahu continues to orchestrate relentless military campaigns in Gaza, resulting in the deaths of tens of thousands of Palestinians, the destruction of civilian infrastructure, and the starvation of an entire population under blockade. Human rights organizations have repeatedly called for him to be tried in the International Criminal Court for war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Instead, the Israeli judicial system — notorious for shielding state officials from accountability for atrocities against Palestinians — is only putting him on trial for financial corruption, ignoring his far greater crimes of mass killing and ethnic cleansing.

The judges also announced that they are considering relocating the trial to Beit Shemesh from Tel Aviv, citing the lack of an adequate bomb shelter at the Jerusalem District Court. The “ongoing war” they refer to is the very one Netanyahu is waging — a brutal, US-backed assault on Gaza that has entered its 675th day without pause.

Currently, the trial is in recess and will resume in September. But for the families in Gaza mourning their loved ones, the pause in Netanyahu’s legal troubles is yet another insult in a world where war criminals walk free while their victims suffer in silence.

Netanyahu may soon answer for his bribery and fraud in an Israeli courtroom — but the far greater reckoning for his crimes against the Palestinian people remains overdue. (ILKHA)