The International Criminal Court has issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, and a senior Hamas official, accusing them of war crimes during and after the October 7 attacks on Israel last year.
In a statement on Thursday, the Netherlands-based court said it found “reasonable grounds” to believe that Netanyahu bears criminal responsibility for war crimes including “starvation as a method of warfare” and “the crimes against humanity of murder, persecution, and other inhumane acts.”
The warrants mark a historic first, making Netanyahu the first Israeli leader summoned by an international court for alleged actions against Palestinians in the 76-year conflict. While ICC warrants don’t guarantee arrests, they could significantly restrict Netanyahu’s ability to travel to ICC member states.
The prime minister’s office dismissed the warrants as “absurd and antisemitic.”
“Israel utterly rejects the absurd and false actions and accusations against it by the International Criminal Court, which is a politically biased and discriminatory body,” his office said, adding that there is “no war more just… after the Hamas terrorist organization launched a murderous attack against it, carrying out the largest massacre against the Jewish people since the Holocaust.”
Netanyahu “will not yield to pressure, will not back down, and will not retreat until all the goals of the war set by Israel at the start of the campaign are achieved,” it said.
Israel, like the United States, is not a member of the ICC and has challenged the court’s jurisdiction over its actions in the conflict – a challenge the court rejected on Thursday. The ICC claims jurisdiction over territories Israel occupies, including Gaza, East Jerusalem, and the West Bank, following the Palestinian leadership’s formal agreement to be bound by the court’s founding principles in 2015.
The court on Thursday also issued a warrant for Hamas official Mohammed Diab Ibrahim Al-Masri, also known as Mohammed Deif, who Israel says was one of the masterminds of the October 7 attack. Israel said it killed him in an airstrike in July but Hamas hasn’t confirmed his death.
The ICC said it found “reasonable grounds” to believe that Deif was responsible for “crimes against humanity, including murder, extermination, torture, and rape and other form of sexual violence, as well as the war crimes of murder, cruel treatment, torture, taking hostages, outrages upon personal dignity, and rape and other form of sexual violence.”
Deif bears “criminal responsibility” for these crimes, the court said, having “committed the acts jointly and through others… having ordered or induced the commission of the crimes,” and for failing to “exercise proper control over forces under his effective command and control.”
The court added that there are “reasonable grounds to believe that the crimes against humanity were part of a widespread and systematic attack directed by Hamas and other armed groups against the civilian population of Israel.”
The ICC prosecutor had initially sought warrants for Hamas leaders Ismail Haniyeh and Yahya Sinwar, both of whom have since been killed by Israel. The court said applications for their warrants were withdrawn as a result.
Hamas welcomed the warrants against Israeli officials in a statement but made no mention of the warrant issued for Deif.
“This… represents a significant historical precedent. It rectifies a longstanding course of historical injustice against our people and the suspicious negligence of the horrific violations they have endured over 76 years of fascist occupation,” it said, calling for all nations to cooperate in bringing the Israeli leaders to justice and “take immediate action to halt the genocide” in Gaza.
Hamas had condemned the ICC prosecutor’s decision to seek warrants against its leaders in May, saying it was an attempt to “equate victims with aggressors.”
US opposes ICC action against Israel
The Biden administration has in the past come out strongly against the involvement of the ICC in investigating Israel’s war in Gaza, but said in the past it did not support sanctions against the international court.
In a statement in May, President Joe Biden said “the ICC prosecutor’s application for arrest warrants against Israeli leaders is outrageous.”
“And let me be clear: whatever this prosecutor might imply, there is no equivalence — none — between Israel and Hamas,” he said. “We will always stand with Israel against threats to its security.”