ICC issues war crimes arrest warrants for Netanyahu, Gallant

The International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants Thursday for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity in Israel’s war against Hamas militants in Gaza.

In a statement on its website, the ICC said the warrants charge each man with the war crime of starvation as a method of warfare, along with crimes against humanity that include murder, persecution and other inhumane acts.

The warrants cover acts committed from “at least 8 October 2023 until at least 20 May 2024, the day the prosecution filed the applications for warrants of arrest.”

Israel is not a member of the ICC. The court does not try individuals in absentia, so Netanyahu and Gallant do not face immediate risk of prosecution. But the threat of arrest could create issues if either man travels abroad.

Netanyahu condemned the ICC arrest warrant. A statement from his office said it is an “antisemitic decision” and Israel “rejects with disgust the absurd and false actions.”

In Washington, a National Security Council spokesperson said the United States “fundamentally rejects” the court’s decision to issue arrest warrants for senior Israeli officials and is discussing next steps.

“We remain deeply concerned by the prosecutor’s rush to seek arrest warrants and the troubling process errors that led to this decision,” the spokesperson said in a statement. “The United States has been clear that the ICC does not have jurisdiction over this matter.”

The Hague-based court’s treaty was negotiated within the United Nations system, but the court is independent of the world body. The U.N. Security Council can refer situations to the prosecutor.

Under U.N. guidelines, the secretary-general and other senior officials do not have contact with indicted individuals, unless necessary to carry out the organization’s work. The U.N. is spearheading the humanitarian response in Gaza.

“So, contacts can be had. They need to be limited,” U.N. spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said in response to a VOA question. “And there is also a procedure through which we advise, in writing, the office of the ICC that these contacts are had.”

The court also issued an arrest warrant for Hamas military chief Muhammad Deif for crimes against humanity, including murder, hostage taking and sexual violence. Those charges are drawn from Hamas’ October 7, 2023, terror attack, on Israel that killed some 1,200 people, including 46 U.S. citizens. Hamas also took about 250 hostages.

Israel has said it killed Deif, but the court said it could not confirm that and issued the warrant. The prosecutor’s office also originally sought warrants for Yahya Sinwar, head of Hamas in the Gaza Strip, and Ismail Haniyeh, the group’s political chief, but it withdrew them following evidence of their deaths.

Following the October 7 attack, Israel began a campaign to eliminate Hamas that has killed about 44,000 Palestinians, according to the Gaza Health Ministry. The ministry does not distinguish between civilians and combatants in its count but says more than half of those killed were women and children.

When the original charges were brought to the court in May by ICC chief prosecutor Karim Khan, Netanyahu issued a statement calling them “a moral outrage of historic proportions. It will cast an everlasting mark of shame on the international court.”

Netanyahu maintained that “Israel is waging a just war against Hamas,” and that the “absurd” charges against him and Gallant “are merely an attempt to deny Israel the basic right of self-defense.”

Netanyahu fired Gallant earlier this month, saying the trust between the two men had evaporated over the course of Israel’s war in Gaza.

Hamas has been designated a terrorist group by the United States, Britain and other Western countries.