Agency Report
The International Criminal Court (ICC) has issued an arrest warrant for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, it announced on Thursday lunchtime, for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity.
The ICC has also issued arrest warrants for Hamas leader Mohammed Diab Ibrahim Al-Masri – also known as Mohammed Deif – and Israel’s former defence minister Yoav Gallant.
The Hague-based court said there are “reasonable grounds” to believe Netanyahu and Gallant had overseen attacks on civilians.
It said crimes alleged against Netanyahu and Gallant included using starvation as a tool of war.
Netanyahu responded by saying he “rejects with disgust” the international court arrest warrant.
Meanwhile Israel’s President Isaac Herzog described the ICC’s decision to issue the warrants for the President and Gallant as “absurd”.
Former Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett called the decision a “mark of shame” for the ICC, while Israel’s main opposition leader Yair Lapid also denounced the move, calling it “a reward for terrorism”.
Palestinian militant group Hamas however welcomed the International Criminal Court’s arrest warrants for Netanyahu and Gallant.
“We call on the International Criminal Court to expand the scope of accountability to all criminal occupation leaders,” the group said in a statement.
There was no immediate comment from Gallant.
The ICC said Israel’s acceptance of the court’s jurisdiction was not required.
Israel has previously rejected the jurisdiction of the ICC and denies war crimes in Gaza. Israel has said it killed Al-Masri in an airstrike but Hamas has neither confirmed nor denied this.
The United States “fundamentally rejects” the decision by the ICC to issue arrest warrants for Netanyahu and Gallant, the White House said.
“We remain deeply concerned by the Prosecutor’s rush to seek arrest warrants and the troubling process errors that led to this decision. The United States has been clear that the ICC does not have jurisdiction over this matter,” a National Security Council spokesperson said.
The statement made no mention of an ICC arrest warrant also issued for Mohammed Deif, the military chief of Hamas.
Mike Waltz, the incoming national security advisor under US President-elect Donald Trump’s administration, defended Israel and promised a “strong response to the antisemitic bias of the ICC & UN come January.”
“The ICC has no credibility and these allegations have been refuted by the US government,” Waltz said on X.
His comments reflected a wider outrage among Republicans, with some calling for the US Senate to sanction the ICC, which counts 124 national members who are in theory obliged to arrest individuals subject to warrants.
Neither the United States nor Israel is a member of the ICC and both have rejected its jurisdiction.
The Hague-based court said Thursday that the warrants for Netanyahu and Gallant were issued “for crimes against humanity and war crimes committed from at least 8 October 2023 until at least 20 May 2024.”
A warrant was also issued for Deif, whom Israel claimed was killed in an air strike in Gaza in July, but Hamas has not confirmed his death.